Luxury Adelaide homes’ bold wallpaper wooing buyers

Not one for watching paint dry? Perhaps wallpaper is the transformational fix needed to get your house ready for sale.

Some of the most luxurious homes on the Adelaide property market are wooing buyers with opulent wallpaper features, with one real estate agent believing the boldest choices often draw the most positive feedback.

Toop+Toop sales partner Jordan Begley admitted his city penthouse listing at 3401/19 Frome St, Adelaide, was out there but said every potential buyer to inspect it had loved it.

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3401/19 Frome Street, Adelaide

3401/19 Frome Street, Adelaide

3401/19 Frome Street, Adelaide

The eclectic home, styled by vendors and former PR consultants Gary Lines and Maggi Miles, opens to a dramatic entry dressed in “Menagerie of Extinct Animals’’ wallpaper – a fauna print by Dutch lifestyle brand Moooi, that features extinct animals mysteriously hidden within the design.

A powder room takes the decorating bravado one step further – with custom wallpaper showcasing cutouts of Mr Lines’ face in various expressions.

“It is bold but buyers definitely love it,’’ said Mr Begley of the penthouse, which occupies the entire top floor of Adelaide’s tallest building and has a price guide of $5.9m.

“Even the powder room with the owner’s face is a talking point.

“If you buy (the home), would you change (the wallpaper)? I wouldn’t change it to my face.

“All the responses we’ve had to it (from those inspecting the home) have been nothing but positive.’’

Mr Begley said bold wallpaper choices, particularly in entryways and powder rooms, were increasingly popular with home buyers and, in small areas, were relatively cheap projects for vendors to undertake.

“There’s definitely an appetite to go away from that cookie cutter approach, or that same- same approach, that everyone (selling a home) is doing,’’ he said.

Harris Real Estate property consultant Guy Barrett agreed wallpaper created a talking point in homes.

Mr Barrett’s listing at 20 Wilkinson Ave, Somerton Park, which has a price guide just shy of $5m, features a huge span of Gucci Glade wallpaper in the entry void that extends to the upstairs living and dining room.

He said reaction to the wallpaper had been mostly positive – although those not fans were unlikely to be dissuaded from buying due to wall coverings alone.

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20 Wilkinson Ave, Somerton Park.

20 Wilkinson Ave, Somerton Park.

20 Wilkinson Ave, Somerton Park.

“I think it (the wallpaper) is great. It’s quite calming,’’ Mr Barrett said.

“But wallpaper is an either-or – you either really love it or you really hate it.

“It’s six or seven metres of floor-to-ceiling (wallpaper in the Somerton Park home) so there’s obviously quite a lot of it.

“There’s been some people that have said, ‘I don’t like it’, and I’ve explained to them it’s very expensive Gucci wallpaper.

“But you’re certainly not buying a $5m house, or close to it, for the wallpaper.

“(If a buyer doesn’t like it) then for $1000 worth of paint and a painter they can just paint over it.’’

Presenting Beautiful Homes interior designer and stylist Jessica Jeffs-Furner said wallpaper had come a long way from the outdated filigree patterns and wall-sized murals of old and now served as a beautiful feature to “break up the whiteness’’ of many homes.

But she suggested those preparing homes for sale should still play it safe and opt for wallpaper with texture and subtle patterns rather than “anything too bold’’.

Ms Jeffs-Furner also recommended confining wallpaper to feature walls instead of using it throughout an interior.

“Buyers are more open to (wallpaper) these days, particularly in modern homes where you want to create a little bit of interest, but it can look quite claustrophobic (if a whole home is wallpapered),’’ she said.

“Doing all your walls (in a room) can be quite striking if the room is large enough to handle it but often you are better off restraining it to just a feature wall.’’

– by Lauren Ahwan

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