The second bedroom at Terra Luz was always going to be the bolder one. The primary bedroom has its own personality, but this room needed something louder. Not chaotic, just confident. Full of pattern, grounded by terracotta, and playful without being childish.
Dawn Asher at The Olive Jar called it Wild Tropics. The brief was bold pattern meets grounding warmth, Latin and lush, the kind of room where you actually want to spend time when you're not at the pool. I think we landed it.
The full room. Rebel Wall botanical wallpaper covers every wall inside the sleeping alcove, including the ceiling.
The wallpaper that anchors everything
The wallpaper is from Rebel Wall, a Swedish brand that prints to order in large-format panels. The pattern is a dense blue and cream botanical, something between a vintage Havana hotel lobby and a botanical greenhouse. It covers all four walls of the sleeping alcove plus the ceiling, which is the move Dawn called "inside-out." When you're lying in bed, you're inside the pattern rather than looking at it on one wall.
At 57 feet wide by 9'5" tall, this was the biggest single line item in the room at $3,800. It's also the decision that made everything else in the room obvious. Once the wallpaper was in, the tile headboard, the terracotta pendants, the striped curtains framing the opening: they all followed.
The tile headboard
The primary bedroom at Terra Luz has a custom tile headboard too. That was intentional, Dawn's way of threading a motif through the house so both rooms feel like they belong to the same property without being identical. The tile in the primary bedroom is terracotta and warm. In the Wild Tropics room it's the same material language but a different palette, one that picks up the blues and creams from the wallpaper while grounding the whole wall in something solid and handmade.
The headboard was custom fabricated for $545. We took tile and laid it out in a 3 x 7 rectangle to form a floating headboard. It's wall-mounted, spans the width of the king bed, and visually anchors a room that could have felt unmoored with that much pattern everywhere.
The pendant lamp and tile headboard up close. The terracotta shade echoes the tile directly.
Straight on. Both pendants lit, terracotta tile headboard, botanical wallpaper wall to wall.
If you look at both bedrooms back to back you can see the dialogue between them. Same craft, different mood.
The seating nook
The alcove opposite the bed became a seating nook. Two navy blue velvet chairs face each other across a dark wood checkerboard side table, with a woven sconce mounted on the wallpapered wall behind them and gold-striped curtains framing the opening on both sides.
The curtains are goldenrod and cream stripe. They frame the nook without closing it off.
Dawn's term for the curtains was "striped curtains frame the full wrap." The goldenrod and cream stripe is warm enough to bridge the blue wallpaper and the terracotta pendants, and the curtains hang from floor to ceiling so the nook has a stage-like quality. You can actually sit in there and have a conversation, which matters when you have eight people in a three-bedroom house and someone needs five minutes away from the group.
Dark wood checkerboard side table, navy velvet, woven sconce. The sconce gives warm direct light without being overhead.
The checkerboard side table was $270, the sconce $159. Small numbers relative to the wallpaper, but they're doing the design work of anchoring the nook as its own intentional space.
The clothing rack and pendants
The room has no closet in the traditional sense. A wood clothing rack stands near the entry wall, which keeps the room functional without sacrificing floor space or interrupting the wallpaper with a closet door. When we photographed the room, we draped a satin orange and yellow batik kimono over the rack. Not a styling trick but a genuine piece in the house. It photographs well against the blue and it's there for guests to wear if they want.
The two terracotta pendant lamps flank the nightstands. They're wired as plug-in pendants on jute cord, DIY-installed, and the terracotta shade picks up the tile headboard directly. Dawn's brief called them "playful terracotta pendant lamps," which is accurate: they're not serious pendant fixtures, they're cheerful ones. The pair cost $110.
Everything in the room, what it cost
I find that people appreciate the honest breakdown, so here it is. Total for the Wild Tropics bedroom was right around $5,600, with the wallpaper carrying the bulk of it.
- Rebel Wall botanical wallpaper (57' x 9'5"): $3,800
- Custom tile headboard: $545
- Jute area rug 8x10: $259
- Article Checkerboard side table (seating nook): $270
- West Elm Woven sconce (seating nook): $159
- Artisanal wood nightstands (2): $140
- Anthropologie Striped curtains, goldenrod and cream (2 panels): $110
- Terracotta pendant lamps: $110
- Full-length mirror (back of door): $70
- Clothing rack (wood): $50
- DIY Curtain rod for closet: $10
None of these are luxury price points. The wallpaper was the real investment and it's the thing that makes the room. Everything else is sourced to support it without competing.
Who this room works well for
If you book Terra Luz as a group of six to eight, this is the bedroom that the right person will call immediately. It has a king bed, a full-length mirror on the back of the door, the seating nook, and more visual interest than most vacation rental bedrooms you've slept in. It's not a quiet neutral room. If you want quiet and neutral, the primary suite is that. Wild Tropics is for whoever wants to be in the room with the personality.
The house sleeps eight across three bedrooms. Rates start around $350/night depending on the season. You can check availability and book directly at the property page or through indigopalm.co/terra-luz.
If you want the full rundown of everything at Terra Luz, the pool, the outdoor kitchen, the primary suite, and the rest, read what I built. And if you're bringing a dog, check the pet policy post first.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes the Wild Tropics bedroom different from a typical vacation rental room?
The Wild Tropics room at Terra Luz has Rebel Wall botanical wallpaper covering all four walls and the ceiling of the sleeping alcove, so you're inside the pattern rather than looking at it on a single accent wall. A custom terracotta tile headboard anchors the king bed, and a seating nook with navy velvet chairs and gold-striped curtains gives the room a second use beyond sleeping. It's the most visually distinct room in the house and tends to get claimed first when groups are dividing up space.
How much did the Wild Tropics bedroom cost to design?
The total came in around $5,600. The Rebel Wall botanical wallpaper was $3,800, the custom tile headboard $545, and the remaining pieces, jute rug, velvet chairs, pendant lamps, curtains, side table, sconce, nightstands, mirror, and clothing rack, totaled roughly $1,200 combined. The approach was one major investment and everything else sourced to support it without competing.
Can I stay in the Wild Tropics bedroom at Terra Luz?
Yes. The Wild Tropics room is one of three bedrooms at Terra Luz in Indio, California, a short walk from the Empire Polo Club. The house sleeps eight and is dog-friendly. You can check availability and book directly at indigopalm.co/terra-luz, which avoids the Airbnb service fee.
Is the ceiling wallpaper treatment difficult to install?
Rebel Wall panels are large-format and print to order, so the installation is more involved than standard roll wallpaper. The ceiling treatment, running the botanical pattern across the sleeping alcove ceiling to continue from the walls, is what creates the immersive effect. It requires careful panel alignment, and a seam misalignment at the ceiling break is visible from the bed, so hiring an experienced wallpaper installer is worth the extra cost.