What do they do: Tom Watts can create wallpaper for you from any image you want. Bernice Harrison reports
At this stage in the development of his wallpaper products, Tom Watts has heard everything there is to hear about Hilda Ogden's wall. Long-time fans of Coronation Street will vividly remember the wall in Ogden's two-up two-down back parlour. It was entirely covered not in traditional wallpaper but in a glossy mountain scene complete, if I recall correctly, with an alpine waterfall.
Watts's Imagine wallpaper is entirely more sophisticated - and dramatic - although the young Kilkenny-based entrepreneur is more amused than insulted by the comparison. His company, set up in October 2003, uses digital imaging technology to create wallpaper with just about every image you might want, from a giant tulip to a personal photo. The potential for interior designers looking to create some drama by covering, say, one wall with dramatic images is obvious.
He got the idea for making wallpaper using modern print technology some years ago but wallpaper is quite different from the paper used in the large poster sites that advertisers use. "Wallpaper has to be able to soak up print on one side and take wallpaper paste on the other as well as being fire resistant and measuring up to a whole load of regulations." It also has to be removable by traditional steam methods.
While looking into printing technology he came across a company in London which already prints such wallpaper and he quickly snapped up a licensing deal.
Jobs to date include an interesting one for Mount Juliet in Kilkenny where he took a digital photo of a 6 inch x 4 inch section of an Adams fireplace and blew it up to 2 metres by 1.5 metres and printed it on rolls of wallpaper. This was then used to cover the walls in a bathroom on the estate. Another client wanted a favourite painting blown up so that it would cover an entire wall in a diningroom. "Really, the possibilities are endless," says Watts. Imagine wallpaper is a bespoke service and it is priced as such, at €200 per sq m.
Imagine Wallpaper, Mall House, Thomastown, Co Kilkenny. 056-772-4760. www.imaginewallpaper.com
