Cotton Banana Split Walls
/Natasha Birley at Tatty Bird Design got in touch with me after her upholstery loving sister found me on Tik Tok. She sent me drawings with measurements and pictures of the Master Bedroom at her clients property in Hampshire.
Below are the before images of the bedroom…
Natashas plan was to take away the exisiting wardrobes and cupboards around the bed and install a new built in wardrobe to the left hand side wall, decorate the ceiling, exisiting skirting and picture rail by painting it blue.
Natasha found a wonderful cotton called ‘Banana Split’ woven in the UK by Olicana Textiles to line the walls of the bedroom with.
Using a very traditional method of fabric walling, I firstly line the walls edges with wooden battening, this thickness can vary but I tend to stick with a depth of 6mm. The wooden battening frames doors, windows and any exisiting joinery, I also build up behind any light fittings or electrical fixtures - this is where I will stretch and finish the fabric too. In between the wooden battening I fix an insulated layer of wadding, this wadding will also help with the acoustics to a room.
The next step is to methodically work out where I am going to place the drops of fabric. I start with the main focal point of a room, this could be a fireplace or in the case of this room it will be the bed. Using a sewing machine I stitch 4 drops of fabric together and centre the seam between the second and third drop to the wall working the fabric stretching either side, top and bottom whilst keeping the seams straight.
To complete the stretched fabric walls, Natasha choose a pretty contrast flat braid to compliment the fabric elements including the House of Hackney curtains bringing the room together. The braid is necessary to go over where I have fixed the fabric to the battening with staples. Scroll down to watch the ‘Work In Progress’ clip.
