Wallpaper windfall
A PUNT by two brothers to get into the wallpaper business more than a decade ago has grown into a multi awardwinning luxury wallpaper design and manufacturing e-commerce powerhouse.
Bryce and Richard Capp’s Milton and King business sold 40,000 rolls of wallpaper in 2021-22, or 400,000 lineal metres.
And while the farmer’s sons never planned to be in wallpaper, the business is growing rapidly and reaches almost every corner of the globe.
“Nothing transforms space like wallpaper. It has amazing transformative powers. You can’t create that warmth, and texture and depth with paint,” Bryce said.
“We’ve had 400 per cent growth in the last four years and we’re hoping for 20 per cent growth this year.
“We want to try and hit eight figures in revenue in 2022-23 which is not a huge jump for us.”
Named after the brothers’ parents’ middle names, Milton and King, the company has eight staff in their Toowoomba factory on Ruthven St, eight at their factory/ showroom in Dallas, Texas, where Richard lives, and one working in the UK.
“Since we opened our factory in the US a large portion of production has gone over there. We are 10 times bigger in the US than we are in Australia,” Bryce said.
“Our production in Toowoomba has gone back quite a bit so we have a fair bit of capacity in Australia and we’re looking at how we can ramp it up and get more sales and focus more attention on the wholesale market.”
After growing up on a farm near Moree in northern NSW, Bryce, 41, became a graphic designer and Richard, 42, had a background in sales and finance.
The beginning of their business partnership was in 2008, when Bryce returned to Australia after four years overseas and had the “bold idea” of starting a canvas print business.
He convinced Richard to team up with him and they borrowed $12,000 from their oldest brother to get the business started. Unfortunately, it didn’t take off and they decided to expand their offering and they produced a brochure outlining their services and one was making wallpaper.
Bryce said they didn’t know the first thing about the wallpaper business at the time.
“But we got a big response and we thought `hang on maybe there’s something in this’,” he said.