No one has a copyright on leaves. No-one has a copyright on William Morris's "Willow Bough" either, as I hope I explained clearly enough the other day : ) . And I'd be interested to learn how many contemporary fabric and wallpaper designers go to the trouble of copyrighting their work... By the way, here's an interesting article from the V&A about wallpaper and the "ransacking of past styles" (below). From which, "The V&A' s collections were brought together with the specific aims of inspiring good design and offering the best of the past as well as the present to inspire and elevate the tastes of designers and manufacturers, and also of consumers. Morris himself adapted patterns from textiles which he saw in the V&A in the 1860s, and wallpaper designers have continued to use the Museum's historic papers and textiles as a resource, copying or modifying them to produce period collections." The article includes a detail from some Osborne & Little wallpaper, c1975, adapted from William Morris's Willow design for printed cotton (about 1895). The V&A's page for the 1970s fabric notes that Osborne & Little's "range of wallpapers and fabrics has always included adaptations of Victorian patterns, as well as their own original designs. They have often used the collections at the V&A as a source of ideas." Here is a link that might be useful: V&A article,

We've had this discussion before and, while I can't recall what my previous position on the issue is, today I'm with Beagles and mtnrdredux.:) I like to read actual books and I also like the idea of books as decor. I once arranged a set of bookshelves with the books by color and height. Very pretty although not very efficient when searching for a book, so that idea got scrapped. I have bought books because I liked their appearance, e.g., a book on bridge with a brown velvet-like cover; a miniature book (in English if read from left to right and in French if read from right to left) about a mischevous cat (un chat mechant); a book on antique Japanese prints the pages of which, when the book is opened, unfold in accordian fashion, etc. I haven't done it often, but why not place a book with a beautiful cover or illustrations on a stand or easel, so that it can be enjoyed as if it were a piece of art? I have one probably published in the early 1900s about a pet dog with photos of the time in it, and I had it on a small stand with one wonderful photo of the dog and the girl who owned it showing. Most of those books were very inexpensive, costing $10 at the most, with most under $5; some are valuable (e.g., some of Teriade's Verve art and literature series). In all cases, I chose them because I liked what they looked like though. Since I can't get onto that web site, I don't know what the Danish books look like. However, I can't imagine spending anything approaching that amount on random books, particularly when common sense says that 7 random books might not even fill a bag on a book sale's $2/bag day.

The frustrating thing about show houses is that often the various companies -- textiles, wallpapers, flooring, furnishings, lighting etc -- provide their products for free in exchange for the publicity. If you can generate a "WOW" moment the way the laundry room walls clearly do, so much the better. So there are usually a lot of elements that are beyond mere mortals in a show house : ) . The bigger and better the show house, the more keen big companies are to participate, and in this case it was the 40th anniversary of the San Francisco Decorator Showcase with a Classical Revival mansion in Pacific Heights, and as always raising funds for San Francisco University High School’s financial aid program, which has received more than $14 million from the showcase over the years. And not so coincidentally perhaps, de Gournay had, just before the showcase, opened a shop on Presidio Heights. They also provided the hand-embroidered wallpaper for the showcase's living room. By the way, I'm reminded of the Chinoiserie laundry room the blogger for Chinoiserie Chic did for the One Room Challenge several years ago. I thought you might enjoy it, DK, http://www.chinoiseriechic.net/2013/10/one-room-challenge-laundry-room.html

Thanks for all your responses. At this point it is pretty much too late to do anything about it. The cabinets are installed and doors and trim stained to match. Anglophilia, thanks for your opinion. I have received a couple of other opinions that the darker stain is nicer. I agree that they are nice and they are well made but they are just not what we selected for our taste. I basically wanted to know from others if this level of variance is in any way normal. Of course the cabinet manufacture is falling back on their CYA statement that wood stain can vary from what you selected and it is normal. I claimed BS on that and said that under any circumstances there should not be that much difference from the provided door sample. We will need to consider other changes that may lighten up the area and again, in my opinion they are not hideous, just not close to what we ordered.