An Interior Designer Trick for Adding Architectural Pizazz To A Dull Room
Why settle for safe, predictable wood wainscoting when you can tile a half-wall and choose from a candy-store variety of hard-wearing patterns?
3 min
WOOD WAINSCOTING, whether painted or not, inarguably adds architectural interest to a wall, but—unlike tile—rarely does it jolt a room with energy. “Tile wainscoting adds character to a space that’s a bit unexpected, and it’s stood the design test of time,” said Los Angeles designer Caitlin Murray of Black Lacquer Design, noting that the technique has been used for centuries in regions such as Portugal and Mexico. Not all tiles are created equal, however, so we’ve put together this guide.
The Appeal
Among designers’ rationales for running tiles up a wall, practicality tops the list. In bathrooms and kitchens the technique guards drywall from, respectively, splashing water and errant olive oil. And when chairs are pulled back too exuberantly in dining rooms, the durable material won’t get scuffed. New York City architect Alexandra Barker defaults to tile for heavily trafficked areas, such as this Brooklyn brownstone vestibule. The large cement hexagons she chose not only safeguard the floor and lower wall, but their yellow-and-white pattern gives the entry its own vibe.
Why apply blandly safe, low-impact wood wainscotting when you could choose from a vast array of personable tile patterns? A tiled half wall “adds a decorative architectural detail to a space, especially welcome when you are working with a white-box room,” said Ms. Murray.
The Tips
You might need to commit to a scheme with just a tile or two in hand, so carefully visualize how a pattern will look when it’s repeated. “Some large or busy patterns may be too jarring and dizzying for small spaces,” warned Ms. Murray.
For the bathroom of a client’s home, Ms. Murray clad half a wall in small black hexagonal tiles, a low-cost designer favourite. On the floor, she set 5-inch squares of blue and white cement tiles in an elaborate pattern of octagons. If you introduce two tile designs in a space, she said, you want them to duet not duel. “While the pairing of blue and black is a bit surprising,” she said, “both patterns are geometric, so in a classic design sense they play well together.”
Encaustic cement tiles, though the rage of late, are not for everyone. “Cement takes on a worn, aged appearance over time, which some people prefer, but if you like things pristine, porcelain is a better choice,” said Ms. Murray.
We won’t advise on glossy versus matte finishes. That’s a personal preference, as is grout colour, though Ms. Murray cautions that white grout on floors will muddy and need upkeep.
The transition where the material ends and wall begins requires judicious thought. Ms. Murray topped her hex-tile wainscoting with a single row of solid black, traditional bullnose subway tile for a punctuating finish, while Ms. Barker tacked simple wood trim painted the same sapphire blue as the wall above, for an edge that disappears.
The Caveats
Painting the wall is a lower commitment than any wainscoting, of course. And masonry doesn’t come cheap. Ms. Barker estimates that installation will set you back $13 to $20 a square foot. But Ms. Murray notes you can curtail the budget when it comes to tile. While Zellige tiles from Clé Tiles in San Rafael, Calif., run almost $44 a square foot, porcelain penny and hexagon designs are affordable and look great on a wall or floor, she said. In solid colours, these shapes start at $45a square foot. And don’t tile a banquet hall: “Remember, a little tile can really make a statement, so it’s a great option for smaller spaces,” she said.
Reprinted by permission of The Wall Street Journal, Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company. Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Original date of publication: April 7, 2022.
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This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
Chinese users of Xiaohongshu, or Little Red Book, welcome Americans fleeing a feared TikTok ban
5 min
They call themselves TikTok refugees—and the app they are fleeing to is a lot more Chinese than the video-sharing app whose U.S. fate now hangs in the balance.
After Supreme Court justices Friday seemed inclined to let stand a law that would shut down TikTok in the U.S., the Chinese social-media platform Xiaohongshu , translated in English as Little Red Book, has received a flood of American TikTok users. They are looking for a sanctuary or a way to protest the potentially imminent TikTok ban—never mind that they don’t speak Chinese.
Charlotte Silverstein, a 32-year-old publicist in Los Angeles, downloaded Xiaohongshu on Sunday night after seeing videos on TikTok about migrating to the app, which Americans dubbed “RedNote.” She described the move as a “last act of defiance” in her frustration about the potential TikTok ban.
“Everyone has been super welcoming and sweet,” said Silverstein, who has made three posts so far. “I love the sense of community that I’m seeing already.”
By Monday, TikTok refugees had pushed Xiaohongshu to the top of the free-app chart on Apple ’s App Store.
“I’m really nervous to be on this app, but I also find it to be really exciting and thrilling that we’re all doing this,” one new Xiaohongshu user said in a video clip on Sunday. “I’m sad that TikTok might actually go, but if this is where we’re gonna be hanging out, welcome to my page!” Within a day, the video had more than 3,000 comments and 6,000 likes. And the user had amassed 24,000 followers.
Neither Xiaohongshu nor TikTok responded to requests for comment.
The flow of refugees, while serving as a symbolic dissent against TikTok’s possible shutdown, doesn’t mean Xiaohongshu can easily serve as a replacement for Americans. TikTok says it has 170 million users in the U.S., and it has drawn many creators who take advantage of the app’s features to advertise and sell their products.
Most of the content on Xiaohongshu is in Chinese and the app doesn’t have a simple way to auto-translate the posts into English.
At a time of a strained U.S.-China relationship, some new Chinese-American friendships are budding on an app that until now has had few international users.
“I like that two countries are coming together,” said Sarah Grathwohl, a 32-year-old marketing manager in Seattle, who made a Xiaohongshu account on Sunday night. “We’re bonding over this experience.”
Granthwohl doesn’t speak Chinese, so she has been using Google Translate for help. She said she isn’t concerned about data privacy and would rather try a new Chinese app than shift her screentime to Instagram Reels.
Another opportunity for bonding was a photo of English practice questions from a Chinese textbook, with the caption, “American please.” American Xiaohongshu users helped answer the questions in the comments, receiving a “thank u Honey,” from the person who posted the questions.
By Monday evening, there have been more than 72,000 posts with the hashtag #tiktokrefugee on Xiaohongshu, racking up some 34 million views.
In an English-language post titled “Welcome TikTok refugees,” posted by a Shanghai-based Xiaohongshu user, an American user responded in Chinese with a cat photo and the words, “Thank you for your warm welcome. Everyone is so cute. My cat says thanks, too.” The user added, “I hope this is the correct translation.”
Some Chinese users are also using the livestreaming function to invite TikTok migrants to chat. One chat room hosted by a Chinese English tutor had more than 179,900 visits with several Americans exchanging cultural views with Chinese users.
ByteDance-owned TikTok isn’t available in China but has a Chinese sister app, Douyin. American users can’t download Douyin, though; unlike Xiaohongshu, it is only accessible from Chinese app stores.
On Xiaohongshu, Chinese users have been sharing tutorials and tips in English for American users on how to use the app. Meanwhile, on TikTok, video clips have also multiplied over the past two days teaching users the correct pronunciation of Xiaohongshu—shau-hong-SHOO—and its culture.
Xiaohongshu may be new to most Americans, but in China, it is one of the most-used social-media apps. Backed by investors like Chinese tech giants Tencent Holdings and Alibaba Group , Xiaohongshu is perhaps best described as a Chinese mix of Instagram and Reddit and its users increasingly treat it as a search engine for practical information.
Despite its Little Red Book name, Xiaohongshu has little in common with the compilation of Mao Zedong ’s political writings and speeches. In fact, the app aspires to be a guidebook about anything but politics.
Conceived as a shopping guide for affluent urbanites in 2013, Xiaohongshu has morphed into a one-stop shop for lifestyle and shopping recommendations. Every day, its more than 300 million users, who skew toward educated young women, create, share and search for posts about anything from makeup tutorials to career-development lessons, game strategies or camping skills.
Over the years, Xiaohongshu users have developed a punchy writing style, with posts accompanied by images and videos for an Instagram feel.
Chinese social-media platforms are required to watch political content closely. Xiaohongshu’s focus on lifestyle content, eschewing anything that might seem political, makes it less of a regulatory target than a site like Weibo , which in 2021 was fined at least $2.2 million by China’s cyberspace watchdog for disseminating “illegal information.”
“I don’t expect to read news or discussion of serious issues on Xiaohongshu,” said Lin Ying, a 26-year-old game designer in Beijing.
The American frenzy over a Chinese app is the reverse of a migration in recent years by Chinese social-media users seeking refuge from censorship on Western platforms , such as X, formerly known as Twitter, or, more recently, BlueSky.
Just like TikTok users who turn to the app for fun, Xiaohongshu users also seek entertainment through livestreams and short video clips as well as photos and text-posts on the platform.
Xiaohongshu had roughly 1.3 million U.S. mobile users in December, according to market-intelligence firm Sensor Tower, which estimates that U.S. downloads of the app in the week ending Sunday almost tripled compared with the week before.
Sensor Tower data indicates that Xiaohongshu became the top-ranked social-networking and overall free app on Apple’s App Store and the 8th top-ranked social app on the Google Play Store on Monday, “a feat it has never achieved before,” said Abe Yousef, senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower.
Run by Shanghai-based Xingin Information Technology, Xiaohongshu makes money primarily from advertising, according to a Xiaohongshu spokeswoman. The company was valued at $17 billion after its latest round of private-equity investment in the summer, according to research firm PitchBook Data.
Not everyone is singing kumbaya. Some Chinese Xiaohongshu users are worried about the language barrier. And some American TikTok users are concerned about data safety on the Chinese app.
But many are hoping to build bridges between the two countries.
“Y’all might think Americans are hateful because of how our politicians are, but I promise you not all of us are like that,” one American woman said on a Sunday video she posted on Xiaohongshu with Chinese subtitles.
She went on to show how to make cheese quesadillas using a waffle maker.
The video collected more than 11,000 likes and 3,000 comments within 24 hours. “It’s so kind of you to use Chinese subtitles,” read one popular comment posted by a user from Sichuan province.
Another Guangdong-based user commented with a bilingual “friendly reminder”: “On Chinese social-media platforms please do not mention sensitive topics such as politics, religion and drugs!!!”
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
