Moderation is a virtue, Part II

If you read my last post, it may have become clear to you that I have a somewhat strong opinion about how, when and where to use toile fabric and patterns in a design palette.  But, what I said is just that: My opinion.  It is just a preference that I have regarding how I prefer and would advise others in using toile. If someone doesn't agree or follow what I have said, then I certainly wouldn't hold it against them or judge them as a terrible or misguided person. That is one of the grandest things about interior design, you truly can agree to disagree and there be no dire consequences (unless something like toile-overload induces someone's epileptic seizure, of course; or if you are insisting on a given design that simply isn't up to snuff according to federal regulations).

All that said, if my last post on toile made you re-think any previous preferences/use of toile and further led you to wonder how I like to have my toile...Never fear! I have plenty of thoughts on how I like to see toile appear in design palettes.

First, there are a lot of different types of toile to choose from. Some of my favorites include

Pastoral



Botanical

Using toile as wallpaper is the perfect example of where moderation is needed. Because it can quickly become overwhelming, you need to be careful of other colors and patterns you plan to include in the room. See exhibit A


Exhibit A

 Here, the homeowner has used toile in the bathroom as wallpaper as well as a chair slipcover. Now, what is interesting about this is that the wallpaper covers only the upper half of the wall, with board and batten on the lower. With the toile appearing only on the upper walls, this creates room for the designer to let the pattern reappear on the chair without it being too overwhelming. Also, because the toile is the only pattern that appears in the room, there is plenty of places that the eye may rest other than the toile. Though the green and white of the toile pattern reappear in the batten and board and the linens, chair and sink, these two colors create such a marked contrast to each other that everything balances out quite well.

Not everyone who chooses to use toile wallpaper will elect for only a half-wall use. Some people want it all and put it all of the walls.



This works for reasons similar to ones stated above. There are multiple places in the room that viewers can rest their eyes on: The white bedding, the molding, the side table and lamp. Another reason is that the room itself is small, thus there is less wall to be covered by toile. One thing that is important to note, is that you never, never, NEVER wallpaper the fifth wall: the ceiling. In the room above, if the ceiling was wallpapered as well with the toile, it would have been too overwhelming...like entering a cave of toile. The toile would seem as if to be closing in on you. Yikes. Yet, because this happy homeowner left the ceiling white and free of toile, the white ceiling draws the eyes upward and creates the illusion of the room being larger than it actually is.

For this next one, I will be very subjective

I am not a big fan of this room's use of toile. though they left the room's ceiling clean, being that the walls are so tall, and the toile pattern is repeating in curtains (and into the loft of the second floor) the toile again becomes too much for me to handle. When you have tall walls/rooms to wallpaper, if you want to go with a wall covering that is more than just a solid color (i.e. you don't just want to paint it), then I would encourage you to get creative. I really like how these folks went about toile-ing their walls:

Here they chose to cover one wall with wallpaper, and leave the others a solid color. If you know anything about toile, you'll know that it consists of a particular "scene" that is repeated through the print. If you look at the specific pattern of the toile featured above, you'll see that the scene is a rather large one. This means that scene repeats itself less frequently. The result is a calmer toile. Moreover, there is less need for art to appear on the wall because the print itself can function as art. Additionally, with the toil appearing on only one of the walls, the leaves more room for the designer to introduce more patterns and textures in the room, such as the vintage console table, the feather, the color red, the striped chair cushion. Because the blue shade of the toile is repeated in other places of the room (chair's trim, the towel, the hanging lamp, and whatever that blue thing is next to the chair), there is a very healthy balance.

Toile can also appear in accents throughout your room. For instance, a toile pillow

Pillows

is a great way to wake up a tired or boring sofa or chair.



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Personally, I am absolutely inspired by this homeowner's choice to use the toile curtain to hide away the pipes and toiletries under the bathroom sink. I just love it!



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Another fun way to use toile is in the form of wall art. I had really only ever seen this happen with the use of toile patterned china. I really like the look...so quaint yet so elegant.



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 Then, as I was doing some research for this post, I happened upon this as well:


Via

 And I thought it was so awesome: framing and hanging toile on your walls! What a great solution to the too-much-toile-everywhere conundrum. Here, the toile lover can have it all: Toile on your walls. Toile on your windows. This homeowner has even got some toile for the furniture too in the form of the accent pillow on the arm chair. And why does this work? Because MODERATION was practiced!! Hooray!

Well, there you have it, here is how I like my toile.