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Jackie Corl and Michelle Corl are happy about the wallpaper award.

Michelle Corl of Wall2Wall Design in Daleville has won the National Guild of Professional Paper Hangers Award for excellence for a job she performed last year at a private residence in Roanoke. The award is sponsored by Zinsser wallpaper products. This is her third national award in wallpaper or paint. She won one in 2000 for the restoration of heritage wallpaper at the Spring Opera House in Columbus, Georgia, with antique wallpaper guru Jim Yeatts and another in 2005 for faux finishes in a private home in Salem.

Corl described her care with an imported wallpaper for the Roanoke home. The French manufactured paper is basically printed with tempra paints, so utmost care had to be taken to keep moisture away so it would not smear or bleed colors, she said.

In her winning entry she said this about the wallpaper installation:

"This project was the installation of the equivalent of 32 rolls of imported Mauny handprinted, hand-trimmed wallpaper in an entry foyer, hallways and staircase of a 1920's Tudor style residence. Though this entry foyer is beautiful, the finished look of this project belies the extensive engineering, manipulation and planning that was needed to install a delicate Mauny handprint in a two story staircase and foyer with multiple archways, slopes and curved walls. In addition to consideration of many intricacies inherent in a complex installation (in this case: the pattern balance and symmetry on the main floor with three archways and two doorways; the balance of the pattern at the slope of the stairs.
This Mauny handprint is a large print floral with a leaf scroll in deep reds, yellows and greens on a cream background, all in distemper inks. Upon initial testing of the paper, the red inks and cream background colors were found to be particularly sensitive to all moistures.
Though the extra effort of application of the fixative seemed to make the installed product more stable, the installation still had to proceed with extreme precision and care. The entire foyer, hallway, and stairwell were primed with Zinsser's Sheildz wall covering primer. The same area was then cross lined with acid free liner paper to act as both a buffer and a moisture blotter. As each piece was selected and measured for installation, clean liner paper was placed on the pasting table to ensure no residue paste could contaminate the face of the product. Each piece was hand pasted."

She does not know who nomintated her, but she is very happy to have the opportunity to be asked to enter and very happy she won. At home with her three-year-old daughter Jackie, both were all smiles for the camera.

The award winning stairwell of Mauny wallpaper.