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I got a frantic call from a painter buddy of mine the other day. It seems his crew was prepping a room, getting ready to spray paint a shower area. They were putting plastic over areas not to be painted, and using tape to hold the plastic in place. All standard proceedure.
The only problem was, the surface they were applying the tape to was wallpaper. And not a durable, tape-resistant type like solid vinyl, and not even the more delicate vinyl-coated paper, but a very expensive UNcoated PAPER paper. And VERY expensive.
Yep, you guessed it – the tape pulled the ink right off the paper, and even lifted some of the paper away from the wall.
Moral: Don’t trust what labels say… Blue painter’s tape, green “removeable” tape…. NO tape can pressed onto wallpaper and then removed safely. There is ALWAYS the chance that it will lift the paper, remove some of the ink, or, most commonly, remove the top layer of paper.
Repairs can be tricky, and in some cases, impossible.
Best to leave the tape on the store shelf!
Tags: installation, painter, painter's tape, prepping a room, solid vinyl, vinyl-coated paper, wallpaper, wallpaper installation
The Wallpaper Lady's Blog 
April 9, 2010 at 7:51 pm |
Hmm..tricky! A designer would have caught that mistake! That is a tough one for the painter. You have to inspect a room before anything is even done to it and more importantly be familiar with all wall treatments when working with walls! If you are updating a space it is even more important to have a plan. For instance, painting a spraying would come first before any wall treatment or fabric is placed in a room. It seems to have been done backwards. I wonder if they thought the beautiful wall treatment would hide or disguise the area that they decided to spray?