Question: I am getting ready to redo...

Question: I am getting ready to redo my den. My biggest problem is wall covering. I would like to have something totally different and unusual. Do you have any ideas?

Answer: Several years ago, when I visited Brazil, I got the idea of covering my den wall with carpeting. I simply extended the carpeting up one side of the wall, and it made a very interesting contrast and also acted as a great sound barrier to the adjoining bedroom.

Currently, I am redoing my den with a montage of family portraits going back almost 100 years.

Over the years, I have seen all types of unusual wall decorations in family rooms, dens and cabanas including:

Paper money collected by an individual who had traveled throughout the world.

A musician friend used the covers of old sheet music from the ‘20s and ‘30s to redo the walls on his music room.

An avid collector of postage stamps, as a youth, had different types of old, worthless stamps and, I suspect, probably purchased additional ones to redo an entire wall of his room.

A friend who had been wiped out during the Depression used his old, worthless stock certificates to wallpaper his room.

Leather blocks: This idea came from a woman who had owned a shoe factory and had the scrap leather cut into blocks and used them as a wall covering.