I encourage you to take a moment to share photos or memories of wallpaper that once claimed precious wall real estate in your homes. It’s such a fun topic—and almost everyone seems to have a story to tell.

Wallpaper actually began as a luxury, created in medieval times as a substitute for costly wall tapestries. By the 18th and 19th centuries, printing advances made wallpaper more affordable and accessible across social classes. It reached peak popularity during the Victorian era—though unfortunately, this was also when many wallpapers contained arsenic. Yikes. Because people didn’t yet understand the dangers, the resulting illnesses were often blamed on “bad air.”

I’ve been using Google search within my Google Photos albums to track down pieces of our own family wallpaper history, and it’s been a surprisingly delightful trip down memory lane. I hope you’ll share photos too! Tell me about the wallpaper you loved… or the patterns you couldn’t wait to see disappear.

When Mike was in college at the University of Michigan, he rented an apartment near the Law Quad on Oakland Avenue. Honestly, I don’t think anyone could ever top the creative use of wallpaper in that place. It was boldly expressive and always sparked conversation.

I’m still a little distraught that I can’t find the photo I took of the living room ceiling—it was covered with a huge quilted star that was absolutely unforgettable. The image below is from the entryway of that apartment, but the ceiling is the one I wish I could show you!

The wallpaper story that immediately comes to mind for me is Mike and I trying to remove a Winnie-the-Pooh wall border in the house at 2725 Yost Blvd. It must have been super-glued to the wall. We were so determined to get the job finished before our exchange student arrived that we worked ourselves into total exhaustion. Somewhere along the way, fatigue turned into slap-happy delirium, and the whole miserable task became oddly hilarious in retrospect.