Inhabit Wall Flats

Wallpaper for renters? That's one way of thinking about Inhabit's bamboo wall flats. It's a great solution to the "no-painting" restriction so many renters are faced with, or for walls with a bumpy texture.

The "flats" are actually 18" square tiles made from chemical-free, recyclable paper pulp that's been molded into one of several textured mod-looking surface patterns. They're modular, fairly simple to apply, and removable (although not re-useable), so they're a great cosmetic fix for plain, ugly or damaged walls.

The tiles can be left raw but they're designed to be painted, so you can use them to bring color to your walls as well as texture. Wall flats come ten to a box. A box costs $84 and will cover 22.5 square feet of wall.

• Available at Inhabit and Design Public

(Edited from a post originally published 11.13.06 - CB)

Comments (15)

I would love to know if anyone has used these. I have a wood panelled wall I was thinking these would be perfect for but would love any real world experience anyone has to offer.

Cool idea -- I kind of like them plain white.

In looking at alot of wall tiles lately it dawned on me that most of them stink (at least that's my taste).

It got me thinking about making my own for one wall in my place. I have a background in printmaking so the idea of essentially dry-printing (no ink) a woodblock into damp rag paper crossed my mind... and then I began thinking about paper pulp and how in and of itself is a fantastic texture. And really making paper is phenomenally easy... I would think that anyone with a bit of DIY or crafting in them could easily make a wall of handmade paper pulp tiles in a weekend. Yeah, that would be cool...

Sorry about the tangent...

I generally loathe wallpaper but these tiles are so cool: both for the designs and for their easy romoval (although I'll bet one would need to touch-up the paint after the tiles are removed).

I second Justine -- has anyone used these? My old house is shifting in my wonderful Texas soil, leading to some drywall cracks. Until I can afford fantastically handprinted European wallpaper (or get better at fixing drywall), the flats seem like a good compromise. I wonder if they crush easily...

These aren't exactly the cheapo solution they seem like at first glance. In order to cover a wall that is 8 feet wide by 8 feet tall you would need 4 boxes, costing you $336.

Has anyone tried painting these things? I want to use their Shangri-La model in a two-color design : red background and the rasied design painted white. Just wondering how easy or hard that would be.

I had couple questions for someone who has already ordered these wall arts...

1. Since the tiles wont be fitting my wall dimension perfectly, how hard would it be to cut each tile?

2. What type of equipment would I need in cutting the tiles (powered saw, scissors, floor tile cutter)?

Thanks,

I just installed the Shangri-La tiles on the back of my kitchen island. It was pretty smooth going. The seams were much more crisp than I thought they would be since the tiles are made of recycled paper. I did attach with tile adhesive.

As for cutting, I used an razor blade pen, which isn't ideal. The edges were quite rough after cutting. I was covering up all of my cut edges with moulding so it didn't really matter. If you are going to have exposed cut edges, you would really want a table saw.

I would think that they are much too heavy for a "temporary" install. The 2 sided tape that comes with them is just standard big box store tape. I am sure that the first hot or humid day you would have tiles all over the floor.

I am now just trying to get up the motivation to paint the tiles.

I bought these a few weeks ago and will be painting this weekend. Keep ya posted

Wonder if they could work for a kitchen...hmmm

I haven't worked with these tiles but I have worked with Victorian reproduction embossed wallpaper, which is the same idea. It was easy to paint other than it takes more time than say a flat wall and it looked great. We did have some start to peel from the wall after several years but it was easily repaired.

I installed these on the back of a freestanding wardrobe I was using to divide a room. As someone noted above, you can cut them with a box-cutter or razor blade, but depending on which texture you get, can leave you with rough edges. The natural color is fine in my opinion, an off-white, but if you wanted to paint them I would use spray paint to get even coating. The tape on the back is definitely not strong enough, as they are well-made and relatively heavy. I had a lot of trouble with them falling off (made worse by the fact that much of the tape was attached to the fiberboard backing of the shelves) but they would probably go on very well with construction adhesive. That's obviously not a temporary solution, so I used 3M OUTDOOR mounting tape, and that has worked very well thus far.

On an other note, Inhabit often has a sale when they sell seconds of their wall flats for half price. I covered a roughly 8'x8' section for around $100. The seconds usually just have slightly dented corners or discoloration on the back. If you are not looking for a perfect (read semi-permanent) install, they are a great deal.

I'm thinking about using these as a backsplash. Does anyone have any info on how easy-cleaning they would be in a kitchen situation?