Lonely walls no more! I promised last week that I'd pull together a few of my favorite wallpaper resources so please click on the links below to view their entire collections. Along with a few great wallpaper resources, I've decided to weave in a little story as a reminder that the modern woman is a lucky girl when it comes to wallpaper selection. Remember the patterns mom had to choose from?

Nama Rococo is haute! Every sheet is painted by hand. This is couture paper at it's finest produced not in Paris, but in Massachusetts by an amazingly talented team.

When I was 4 years old, my parents custom built a home and I can still recall the process in great detail because it was a really big deal to them because everything had to be perfect. It was a big deal to me as well because It took precious time away from my little art projects and the one house I really cared about -- the Barbie dream house -- to tag along with mom to home stores. Together we viewed tile, carpet, paint, appliances, garden supplies, I was constantly by her side as she managed the interior and gardening part of the project while my father was off dealing with the contractors. The home was 4 levels and had about 11 rooms, several acres of land, a huge finished lab space for my father, and a large brick patio. Perhaps this is where the whole design bug really sunk its teeth into my tender young skin; looking back I see that exposure to decorating came long before even I appreciated it or knew that someday my life would be dedicated to obsessing over interiors.

Ferm Living is ultra desirable, so many ladies I know want to own something from Ferm, it's brilliantly bold.

At one point in the decorating process, I recall my mother complaining about having such a limited wallpaper selection. Today's American consumer has a new problem -- a plethora of papers! We are exposed to a superabundance of patterns, textures, and colors when it comes to nearly everything. For a new homeowner like my twenty-something mom back in the '70s, things were different. This was long before the bevy of magazines, the internet, and all of the amazing design blogs we can access 24/7. See what I mean about being lucky? When I think of American design in the '70s (cough, cough) and what people had access to  here I tend to think that good design options were slim. Sears was all the rage and when you needed paint, you headed to Sherwin-Williams or checked out those massive wallpaper binders from the local hardware store with some pretty dreadful patterns inside.

Walls Like Pictures in Germany has a huge collection of modern graphical prints in excellent color-ways.

The beautiful Familjen wallpaper by Swedish designer Lisa Bengtsson available at Le Souk. It's a hard pattern to find in the states, but Le Souk ships all over the world.

Canadian designer Judit Gueth creates digital wallpaper that enchants. The Koi paper in silver is my favorite.

And for a terrific on-stop-shop on the web (also there's a LA showroom) that carries lots of different lines, try Walnut Wallpaper. Don't miss their line up of Cole & Son, Osborne & Little, Flavor Paper, and Twenty2. Delish!

Frustrated over her limited wallpaper selection, I vividly recall the day mom stood in Sherwin-Williams looking through samples in large dog-eared books, eyes glazed over and thoroughly unmotivated. Eventually, she hired a designer to help her because she fell into such a design rut and couldn't see her way out of the tunnels of ugly orange and brown paper. The designer had a fresh perspective and a few books my mother hadn't seen before, so within a few months wallpaper was installed and the home was complete. Just in time for the relatives to fly out and inspect things.

In the end, our home was beautiful and thoughtfully pulled together, but I'll never forget the frustration mom felt due to lack of a good selection. I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief that vast improvements have been made in the world of design and thanks to the web we have products and services available today that our parents could only dream of. So the next time you fret over selecting wallpaper, think about  how lucky we modern ladies are that such an abundance even exists.

Looking for additional wallpaper patterns and a few tips too? Click on over to my design blog decor8, I have lots of great papers and ideas for them in my archives right here and here.

(images linked beneath photos to source)

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