See that faint strip of blue running along the right edge of the dark wallpaper? That is a special piece of plastic tape that is used to keep the paste on the back of the wallpaper from getting onto the painted wall or ceiling.
After the cut is made, the excess paper and tape are pulled away. Be sure to grab the blue tape from both sides of the cut.
Voilà! The wall is kept nice and clean; no need to wipe paste off the ceiling or worry about smearing paste into a textured surface.
Eeewww – I’m stripping wallpaper off the walls of a bathroom. What a mess!
(Don’t worry – there are dropcloths under there.)
For a few years now, I’ve been using Roman’s Pro 977 Ultra Prime wallpaper primer, and this was my first chance to remove paper that has been hung on it. I must say – I was very pleased.
The paper came off nicely enough, and the primer stayed stuck to the wall. It did not rewet or bubble. There was NO damage to the walls, and no need for repairs, nor any need to reprime.
One key to this is to wet-strip the paper. You cannot come in and just try to yank the paper off the wall. First of all, that won’t work. But if it does, it is likely that the paper will take some of the primer and even some of the wall or drywall along with it.
The proper, more gentle way to strip wallpaper is …
You’ve gotta understand that wallpaper is made of at least two layers – the top, inked layer, and the underlying substrate layer.
I use plain water and a 3″ stiff putty knife to strip paper. The water will re-wet the paste on the back of the paper, and once it is wet and softened, the paper will (usually) peel away from the wall easily and in large pieces.
The thing is, water will not penetrate the top, inked layer of wallpaper. That’s because the manufacturer has applied a coating to protect the paper from stains, and it is resistant to water.
So I take that putty knife and use it to get under the top layer of wallpaper – withOUT gouging into the substrate or into the wall. Then I peel off that top layer of paper. I have found that wetting the surface with a sponge helps strengthen the fibers, so that larger chunks of paper come off. You will also find that there is a “nap” to the material, and it will pull off in larger chunks once you figure out if it wants to be pulled from top to bottom and / or from left to right – or vise versa.
It will separate and leave the backing / substrate stuck to the wall.
Once that top layer is off, I use a sponge and a bucket of hot water to wet the backing. Over and over as needed. The backing is porous and the water will soak through, allowing the paste to reactivate. Once that paste gets wet enough, it will let you pull the backing away from the wall.
You will have the most success with this if the walls were properly prepped and primed before the original wallpaper went up.
That’s it in a nutshell. Time consuming, but sort of methodic and meditative. And it will leave your walls in good condition to receive the new wallpaper.
Hiring an electrician?
I hope you like cleaning up after them – because they won’t!
I measured an under-construction home in the Heights for wallpaper today, and found messes like this under EVERY electrical box.
How’s this for something no one else is gonna have?! The homeowner of this Galleria-area home in Houston is a big-personality gal, recently divorced, and she wants her new home to reflect who she is. Everything in the house that could have glitter, shimmer, mirror, or glitz does – including the dog bed and the kitchen backsplash.
This wallpaper in the adjoining powder room (with a huge crystal chandelier!) fits right in with that new life.
This is a sort of mural, composed of rectangular panels about 3′ wide x 2′ high. It was bought on-line, and came with no information or installation instructions.
It was a paper substrate, and was meant to be butted at the seams, as opposed to overlapped, as many mural panels are. After experimenting, I found that a powdered wheat or cellulose paste hydrated the paper best, and that a little of my traditional wallpaper paste added to the mix helped hold the paper tightly to the wall and minimize shrinkage as the panels dried.
The paper curled badly when it was wet with the paste (see third photo), which made it difficult to paste it, book it, and then get it to the wall.
It also expanded a lot when it got wet – almost an inch in each direction. Uneven expansion meant that it developed large wrinkles and warps that were difficult to remove.
In addition, the walls were bowed and uneven in the corners, the walls were not plumb, the ceiling was not level, the crown molding was at different heights on different walls, and we didn’t have a lot of paper to play with.
It took a lot of work to keep the pattern matched as well as possible in the corners, to keep the pattern running at the right point below the crown molding, to eliminate the aforementioned wrinkles, to butt the panels, to minimize white showing at the seams due to the panels drying and shrinking, the paper getting saturated and tearing or dragging when I tried to trim it, and lots more challenges.
All this could have been easier if the manufacturer had chosen a better substrate to print on. But – well, hey, we’ve got a digital printer, so let’s just dig up some paper stock, print cool designs on it, and market it as wallpaper.
Actually, this material worked out pretty well in this small powder room. But I would not want to paper a large, wide wall with it.
Most companies who make murals like this, on this type of thin paper substrate, allow for the edges to be overlapped about 3/8″ at each seam. This allows the installer to make adjustments for wonky walls and ceilings, and it eliminates the gapping at seams as paper dries and shrinks. It does, however, leave a ridge along each seam where the edges are overlapped.
Overall, though, I was not unhappy with this product in this room. And working out all the challenges was mighty fun. I was glad to have a nice, quiet, empty house to do all this in. All in all, this medium-sized powder room that I had prepped the weekend before, took me nine hours to hang.
Continuing the West U job I started Tuesday (see previous posts), today I papered the little boy’s room. I hung the original diamond geometric a few years ago, but the new homeowners have a younger family and wanted different wallpaper.
The son zoomed in on this design because it reminds him of his beloved Legos building blocks.
Notice the difference in feel between the two patterns. The diamond pattern (which makes me thing of old movie spotlights) takes center stage. But the new selection is a small, tight pattern that settles into the background and covers the walls in more of a textured look.
This wallpaper pattern is by Thibaut Designs, and was bought from my favorite source for good quality, product knowledge, expert service, and competitive price – Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. She is great at helping you find just the perfect paper! Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.
I was hoping the brighter light would make the butterfly pattern easier to see – but, alas, this looks pretty much like yesterday’s post.
The wallpaper is much prettier in person!
Re my previous post, here is a bathroom in a strong black-on-white geometric that I hung just a few years ago. A new family with younger kids has moved in, and wanted something lighter and brighter.
This fluttery butterfly pattern went in the guest bathroom, which is attached to the little girl’s bathroom (Jack & Jill set-up).
The pattern is subtle; it shows up better in person than in my photos.
This wallpaper pattern is by Wallquest, in their Ecochic line, and was bought from my favorite source for good quality, product knowledge, expert service, and competitive price – Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. She is great at helping you find just the perfect paper! Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.
The home is in West University Place (Houston) – and just so happens to be right down the street from Dorota!
I hung these two geometric prints in two upstairs bathrooms in a contemporary home in West University Place (Houston) in June 2017. A few short years later, the homeowners moved away.
The new homeowners have younger children, and want something more age-appropriate.
So today I am stripping off my own work. Keep posted to see what the new look will be!
Grasscloth is made from natural fibers, and you never know quite exactly what you will get from bolt to bolt, and even from strip to strip.
In the first photo, you see a lot of “nubs” or knots – where the individual grass fibers have been tied together. You also see a seam, and see how uniform this particular material is. Quite often, the seams are a lot more visible. (see previous posts)
Back to nubs … In the second photo, a strip taken from the same bolt, there are far fewer knots.
Nothing right or wrong with either scenario – just showing how the material can change in appearance, even within the same bolt.
Personally, me, I prefer the more nubby texture.
Just an aside – most of this stuff is made in China. It is made by hand. And there really are workers who harvest tall reeds of grass, lay them in the sun to dry, and then come the little ladies who sit all day and grab handsfull of the grass and knot the reeds together, so these can then be sewn onto the paper backing and turned into wallcovering.
I love the way the iron headboard looks against the nubby, earthy grasscloth.
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