Beyond the paint-chipped red door of a former felt factory in Chicago, Koessel Studios creates hand-crafted artisanal wallpapers of incomparable beauty and originality.

         Here texture trumps all. It’s where the design process begins. Patterns emerge as pigment is layered in brushstrokes, which lends the paper a sculptural quality, a rich tactile sense and enveloping Paintbrushes and Wallpaperluminosity.
         Crafted entirely by hand, the human touch is subtly perceptible in the one-of-a-kind finished product. Mastering their craft for more than twenty years, Koessel Studios aims for imperfect beauty – the “regular irregularity” of the repeat pattern, which transforms a room and gives it soul.
        Beauty of the ordinary and the unusual is what inspires the husband and wife design team Allen and Judy Koessel. Like alchemists, they turn paper and pigment into handcrafted wallpapers of uncommon beauty from their design studio in Chicago. They have fashioned tools and developed a number of exclusive printing and painting techniques not found elsewhere.
Al Making Pattern Stencil

        When they began more than twenty years ago, the couple knocked on the doors of local interior designers with only a handful of designs. The Koessels credit those early relationships with spurring the innovation in their work. Today, their papers are in demand by interior designers from all over the world. Koessel Studios remains a TO-THE-TRADE only source.
         Allen and Judy Koessel create hand-crafted wallpapers by proprietary methods developed over twenty years. The creation of a Koessel paper – unlike most wallpaper – starts with texture.
All Koessel designs are created on a textured, non-woven substrate, which is made from an eco-friendly cellulose fiber. It is breathable and more resistant to mold than traditional vinyl wallcoverings. Hand carved stamps and an array of unconventional tools are used to craft the most enticingly tactile wallpapers. Patterns emerge as if sculpted from the surface.

        San Ceres StampOnce the desired texture is achieved, a design is added to the paper. The texture is inherent in the non-woven paper,” says Judy. “We just bring the personality out of the materials.” Organic and chameleon-like, Koessel patterns are intended to work in any décor.