Hi Pam,

Finally! Time to write about my May Day tour of the Bradbury & Bradbury Wallpaper factory in Benicia CA last weekend. I’m very fortunate to live a little over an hour away, so this was pretty exciting!

I ended up with a much later start than planned due to some home stuff that had to be taken care of, but it all worked since it was the warmer part of the day and I decided to ride my motorcycle to Benicia.

Of course, I forgot to snap some photos of the outside of the very historical building where they are located. I found one on their Facebook page, so that will have to suffice. The building houses not only Bradbury & Bradbury, but also many artisans and a couple of antique and consignment shops.

After wandering through the building, I found Bradbury & Bradbury, and was warmly greeted by their Customer Service Manager, Beverly. Now, I have to confess, Beverly and I had a great phone conversation about 2 weeks prior to their one-time-per-year open house. I was calling to inquire whether they could change the colors of my favorite post war paper they make, Geranium. Beverly kindly explained that to change a color on silk screened wallpaper was doable, but if I changed one particular color, then all instances of that color on the paper would change.

Hmmm……the Geranium wallpaper has little flower pots, with cream, red, and blue flowers. In the non-flower pot areas, there are blue squares. I only wanted the squares changed….possibly to black. That was until Beverly said the blue flowers would then be black too! We had a good laugh over that, and I decided maybe black flowers might be a bit much, as I don’t think I’ve run into Mourning paper in a kitchen. There is a set up fee to change colors, and in general, once that is accomplished the actual cost of the paper in custom colors is approximately double the listed retail price.

Back to the tour – for some reason I had this “manufacturing” factory envisioned, but it was far from that. Instead, there was a large room with about 5 very long narrow tables, where they roll out the substrate paper that they silkscreen with the particular wallpaper design they are making. No real machinery required! Colors are applied one color at a time, so for papers with 6 or 7 colors, it means that many passes on the paper until it is completed. Their most expensive paper has a whopping 17 colors on it, so it is quite a lengthy process from start to finish. This is the paper behind the photo of Steve, Lisa, and Beverly.

In one of the photos, you can see the various stages of coloration on the paper. It certainly gave me a huge appreciation for the amount of work that goes into their wallpapers, and they absolutely take a great amount of pride in producing very high quality wallpapers. Much higher quality than one would ever find in a box store or in most retail wallpaper books.

I also have to say, when I walked in, the first thing that struck me about their papers in general is that they all have this “glow”. This is somewhat hard to describe, but it is kind of like the difference between looking at the outdoors after a long, hot, dry, dusty summer vs. how the outdoors look right after a nice fresh rain. So much more clarity, clean, crisp, depth of color and vibrancy. I found myself glowing just looking at them!

Quite a few of their papers also employ a bit of metallic ink, which also steps up the WOW factor. It seriously caused me to wish I was really wealthy so I could buy about 5 different houses to wallpaper.

After wandering a bit and looking at the paper being silkscreened, admiring all the great samples on the walls, and collecting my stash of samples to take home, Beverly introduced me to Steve and Lisa, the (awesome) owners of Bradbury & Bradbury. Steve does most of the design work, and in talking with him, he said that sometimes he will do exact replicas of historic or vintage wallpaper as he did with the Post War kitchen papers, and sometimes he pulls inspiration from other places. It was very evident in their Art Deco collection that architectural elements of the era were a strong influence.

The great thing about people who are passionate about historical and retro details, furniture, wallpapers, etc, is that they often end up sharing other passions, to be discovered in lively conversation. As Steve and I were talking, the next thing we knew, we were talking about vintage travel trailers and our mutual love of them. Unfortunately, I’m going to be selling mine, so of course I’ll be sending photos to Steve since they haven’t bought one yet.

Bradbury & Bradbury was a wonderful place to visit, with great staff and ownership, and for anyone thinking about wallpaper for their home, I highly recommend taking a look at their website. A few side notes that Steve told me: their rolls are wider at 27″ than standard modern papers, and quite a lot wider than vintage papers, most of which were about 18″ wide. I’ve looked at vintage paper, and generally speaking, it doesn’t come cheap, so it really isn’t much of a stretch to purchase Bradbury wallpaper. Of course, the added bonus is Bradbury & Bradbury can make as much paper as you need, and there is no worry of any lead based inks on their paper as there is on some of the vintage papers.

At the end of remodeling “Craig”, my mobile home, he will have a kitchen and possibly a dining room outfitted in Bradbury & Bradbury paper. I may very well end up being the only mobile home owner in California with Bradbury & Bradbury wallpaper, but I will have the best walls around, without question. Maybe after I’m done, I’ll have to start calling my mobile home a mobilungalow.

A very special thanks to Pam for her arranging my VIP tour, and for all the wonderful posts and inspiration she provides us with her blog.

Tami

Thank you, Tami, what a great report — and I’m so happy you had fun. I do love this wallpaper! See all of Bradbury & Bradbury’s Modernism line — including papers from the 1990s through the 1970s eras — here.

Disclosure: Bradbury & Bradbury has advertised on my site in the past, and may start up again soon. That said, I write about retailers that interest me, whether they advertise or not. In fact, I hope to have someone start helping with advertising sales soon, so I don’t have to think about or even know what’s up with whom. Me just wanna write.

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The four papers — Berkshire, Hampshire, Warwickshire and Essex — are all taken from 1920-1940s documents in the Bradbury archives. Read on for more from Steve…

Steve writes,

Hi Pam,

Thanks, I’m glad you’re interested in our new papers. All four are from early 1920-1940s documents in our archives. These are always harder to date because many damask patterns originated from even earlier examples, some of which may go as far back as the 16th century. Because of that “timeless” quality and their visual elegance damasks have never really migrated away from popular taste. We wanted to make this new collection adaptable to a wide range of tastes and so chose to be less “period specific” in the colorings, using more neutrals and soft metallics which can blend with either historic or more contemporary styles of decorating.

As far as uses, they are more probably best suited to the main living areas, unless there is a desire to go a little more formal in a master suite, for example. As I mentioned earlier they would be appropriate in almost any style of home, with the exception of perhaps the most sterilized of MCM homes, where “ornament is crime”.

And yes, we will be developing more traditional patterns like these, as long as our customers ask for them!

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I heard from Ohio Catherine recently – remember her adorable ranch…and all her Drexel furniture? Catherine has continued to work on her vintage steel Youngstown kitchen — pulling together the extra pieces she needs — as well as her pink bathroom — including checking out Bradbury & Bradbury wallpaper to go-with:

hey pam!

i got a few samples from bradbury today.  i love all the grey in the sunnyside up for the kitchen! and in the bathroom, i thought i would like the googie better, but after i put them up on the wall i’m leaning toward the atomic doodle. what do you think?

the youngstowns in the pictures are my newest addition, before we tore them out of an old house about an hour from here.  someone contacted me via my wanted ad on craigslist and told me they wanted them out of the house so he could remodel.  they need a lot of cleaning, stripping, and painting!! but i have my corner piece!  i cringed when i saw you posted my youngstown handles on your ebay picks, because i NEED them!! haha!!

and lastly i sent a picture of my chambers sitting in the garage!

thanks for all your suggestions, LOVE your site!!

Thanks, Catherine. You have your own Tag now! I agree – that Atomic Doodle wallpaper up against your classic Mamie pink tiles looks fantastic. But I am not so sure about the Sunnyside in the kitchen. Even though I think I recommended it – I tend to think the grid of the wallpaper alongside the grid of your tiles is not the perfect combo. So…I consulted Steve Bauer of B&B to see what he thought. He also had some great advice for wallpapers going into a bathroom:

Pam,

Thank you for taking the time to help Catherine and asking for our opinion! You mentioned “Atomic Googie” looking fabulous, but I didn’t know if you meant our “Atomic Doodle” or “Googieland”, but hey, I think they are both terrific in that incredible bathroom! I would recommend however that we seal the paper, (which is not expensive) if the bathroom produces a lot of moisture. She can ask for that through our Customer Service if she places an order.

As far as “Sunnyside”, it is probably the least grid-like pattern of the four Post War papers (when you compare them on our site) but it might pose some competition with her terrific tilework. Some of the reds we matched for these papers in the paper are actually values of “carmine”, a sort of wine red color used frequently in late 40′s and early 50′s papers rather than a primary red as it may appear in the photos. They definitely appear lighter however than the deeper maroon in her tile.

Does she have a breakfast nook off the kitchen? If so, she could paint the walls in the kitchen a light pearl gray to harmonize with her cabinets and use our “Scallop Trim” at the top of the wall, (the one with silver in it like the cabinet handles) and use “Sunnyside” in the nook with the “Trim” above that (!) The nook would then be a beautiful compliment to the kitchen without the two competing. If those options don’t sound appealing to Catherine she could always try to find a vintage paper through some of your links (?).  From the tiny portions I could see it looks like a terrific vintage kitchen! I wish her the best!

I hope this offered something in the way of assistance to you and Catherine. We are always glad to help. Thanks again!
Steve

Thanks, Steve!

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