Residential Winners Commercial Winners Specialty Winners

Members of the National Guild of Professional Paperhangers (NGPP) recognized nine exceptional wallcovering installation projects in the 2008 Winning Walls with Wallcoverings Awards. The Zinsser Company, maker of wallcovering installation products, again has proudly sponsored NGPP’s Winning Walls with Wallcoverings program.

The program is open to any NGPP member who has completed a wallcovering project during the calendar year. An independent panel of judges in cooperation with the PDRA in St. Louis assesses each entry by assigning point scores to 15 different project factors, including creativity, special challenges, materials, time constraints, and the quality of the entry presentation. The panel of judges was made up of three designers and three installers.

The awards were presented at a luncheon held during the 2008 NGPP Convention and Tradeshow in Asheville, North Carolina, September 17 – 20, 2008.

• Residential Category: Scott Mulhern, Scott Mulhern Custom Papering, Hopewell, New Jersey
• Commercial Category: Keith Long, Quality Interiors, Corona, California
• Specialty Category:  Glen Olsen, Jr. C.P., V & G services, Woodbridge, Illinois and John Damme, C.P., Exquisite Interiors, Hickory Hills, Illinois.

• Residential Category: Michelle Corl, Wall2Wall, Troutville, Virginia
• Commercial Category: Eunice & Frank Bokstrom, Design Wallcovering Professional Installation, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
• Specialty Category: William White III, Robert J. White Company, Cincinnati, Ohio

• Residential Category: Denis Picard, C.P., Denis Picard Wallcovering, Kensington, Connecticut
• Commercial Category: Steven Kaye, C.P., Paper Craft Interiors, Inc., Algonquin, Illinois and Phil & Jennifer Curtis, C.P., Curtis Enterprises, Dolton, Illinois
• Specialty Category: Phil & Jennifer Curtis, C.P., Curtis Enterprises, Dolton, Illinois
  
  

Residential

1st Place Winner
Scott Mulhern, Scot Mulhern Customer Paperhanging, Hopewell, New Jersey

Entry Description: The concept for this baby’s room evolved from the paperhanger’s experience installing various wallcoverings in over 11,000 rooms. This 12 foot by 18 foot bedroom with a 12 foot ceiling needed to come alive and look real without being threatening to the tiny, new occupant. The installer meshed different wallcovering compositions together to create a one-of-a-kind nursery complete with the sun, moon and stars amongst the clouds as well as hand trimmed animals overlooking the baby’s changing table and other furniture. It took the installer over nine hours just to hand trim the animals right down to the individual hairs. Special note: this was the installer’s first grandchild so this award is extra special.

Entry Description: For this project, the installer tackled the installation of hand printed and hand trimmed Mauny Wallcoverings in an entry foyer, hallways, and staircase of a 1920’s Tudor style residence. The large floral pattern had to be carefully engineered so that it would fall properly on the multiple archways, slopes and curved walls. In addition, the project was expanded with the second part of the project occurring months later with additional material from a different batch. Using multiple lasers and hand trimming the trimmed paper to three different dimensions on various drops of paper allowed the installer to have a bold pattern where needed.

Honorable Mention
Denis Picard, C.P., Denis Picard Wallcovering, Kensington, Connecticut

Entry Description: When is a stripe not a stripe? When its silk wallcoverings cut to form a random striped sequence of fourteen different widths derived from just three colors. The installer faced numerous challenges on this project. Most notably, the fabric was delayed at the laminators for quite a while and when it finally arrived at the job site, the installer discovered that most of the silk was blemished or wrinkled. From this predicament, the installer managed to craft this amazing installation to meet the client’s needs. The client stated that she wanted the sequencing to be “random” to reflect the chaos in her life. It took the installer and his assistant three and a half days to prep, custom cut, and seam the 153 pieces that would have been equivalent to a 10 roll dining room.


Commercial

1st Place Winner
Keith Long, Quality Interiors, Corona, California

Entry Description: This complicated project included the installation of 60 yards of burlap backed acrylic in dressing rooms that were painted to look like metal, 700 yards of fabric installed on ceilings, soffits, walls, doors, wrapped panels, shelves, seating areas and two 40 foot long molded fiberglass walls  made to look like curtains. The 27 foot ceilings and the 10 day work schedule to meet the grand opening deadline was just part of the challenge for Prada’s new flagship store, Miu Miu on Rodeo drive.

2nd Place Winner
Eunice & Frank Bokstrom, Design Wallcovering Professional Installation, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Honorable Mention
Steven Kaye, C.P., Paper Craft Interiors, Inc, Algonquin, Illinois and Phil and Jennifer Curtis, C.P., Curtis Enterprises, Dolton, Illinois

Entry Description: This installation was completed at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago featuring the original artwork of a young, living artist named Ken Fan dell. His artwork was digitally reproduced on a grand scale to cover two 50 plus foot walls nearly 11 feet tall. The 28 panels of digital murals were flawlessly installed over once highly textured walls with over 35 coats of paint. Museum patrons watched the three installers work over three days to carefully assemble the artist’s abstract vision of various cloud formations

Specialty

1st Place Winner
Glen Olsen, Jr. C.P., V & G Services, Woodbridge, Illinois and John Damme, C.P., Exquisite Interiors in Hickory Hills, Illinois

Entry Description: The designer on this project had no experience with scenic murals. As a result the designer relied on the installers’ experience from start to finish. Twenty-eight hours were spent just measuring and drawing the room’s layout so the artists in New York and China could produce the scenic panels to exactly fit the areas. Nearly, 170 man-hours were spent installing this Stark Tour du Monde scenic mural. The two installers utilized their many years of experience to avoid getting adhesive on the tempera painted mural and produce a flawless installation.

2nd Place Winner
William White III, Robert J. White Company, Cincinnati, Ohio

Entry Description: For this project, the paperhanger was commissioned to design and construct lightweight portable panels, then install a Gracie mural on the custom panels so that the client could take the special mural with her when she moved. Panel frames were precisely built, one eighth inch panel boards attached and then liner paper applied. Precise measurements were taken and then the Gracie mural was meticulously installed over the four panels. The completed panels were then hung with Velcro on a headboard wall.

Honorable Mention
Phil & Jennifer Curtis, C.P., Curtis Enterprises, Dolton, Illinois

Entry Description: An inquiry via the internet brought these professionals a unique project installing hand painted murals at a new hospital in the Chicago suburbs. The 17 murals totaling over 1200 square feet were painted in Florida and carefully transported on a suspended tube to prevent creasing the beautiful artwork that featured many of Chicago’s landmarks. The largest mural-over 50 feet long-was installed in the hospital’s main entrance- a large glass corridor that had huge temperature fluctuations from morning sun ‘til night. The installers faced many challenges including working around multi-million dollar medical equipment, to complete this award winning installation.

2008 Contest

Entry forms for the 2009 Winning Walls with Wallcovering contest will be available in the spring of 2009. Bring your camera and start taking those photographs before, during, and after, as you never know when that one project may turn out to be a winner.