Strengthening a Tenuous Seam

Most people don’t use phone or cable connections in the wall anymore, so it’s common for me to remove the cover plates, stuff the wires into the box, and cover the hole with the wallpaper.

In this case, the seam was going to fall where there really wasn’t going to be enough wall for the wallpaper to be able to grab ahold of (see top photo). I was worried about the seam coming loose and gaping open.

My solution was to tear a bit of backing from a piece of scrap paper and use it to bridge the area over the hole where the seam would fall. This way, the wallpaper would be able to grab hold of the paper, and the seam would not pop open.

I had to separate the non-woven backing from the textured vinyl surface of the wallpaper. This gave me a thin piece that was not likely to cause ridge under the new wallpaper. It also got rid of the vinyl surface – wallpaper adhesives don’t like to stick to vinyl or other slick surfaces.

I tore the strip because the edges were then slightly feathered, which makes any slight bump under the wallpaper less noticeable.

I put plenty of paste on both sides of the patch strip, so it would stick to both the wall behind it and to the new wallpaper going on top of it.

No photo of the finished area, but it worked perfectly, with the paper and the seam stuck tightly and invisibly to the wall.

Tags: adhesive, box, bridge, bump, cable, feathered, hole, phone, ridge, seam, textured, vinyl, wallpaper, wires