Borders have largely disappeared from modern decorating, which is a pity, because they do something no other wallcovering can: they finish an edge. Zellige Border is drawn as a tile trim, following the logic of real tilework where a run of plain field tiles is closed with a decorative course, and it is made to sit with Zellige, Sultan's Palace and the other Martyn Lawrence Bullard designs.
The drawing carries the same hand-rendered irregularity as the tiles it accompanies, with softened edges, pooled glaze and small variations from unit to unit, so it reads as ceramic rather than as printed trim. Used at dado height, above a skirting, around a door case or under a cornice, it gives a papered wall the definition a tiled wall gets from its border course.
It comes on a 10.05 m roll with a random match, which is exactly what a border needs. With nothing to align, it can be cut and butted anywhere, run around returns and stopped at a corner without waste. That makes it economical to use generously, which is the right way to use it: a border applied once looks like an afterthought, while a border carried consistently around a room reads as joinery. It is the finishing move in Bullard's layered style.
