I hung this paper maybe a year before the Pandemic. It was a pretty new home, in the Towne Lake are of Cypress (NW Houston). Now, two or three years later, this pink patch has developed on the lower part of the powder room wall that backs up to the garage.
To me, my experience says this is mold.
There’s gotta be moisture inside the wall coming from somewhere.
The homeowner has already contacted the builder (thank goodness for warrantees!) and it’s certain that much of this wall will be torn out. Once the leak is fixed, the mold has been remediated, and the drywall patched, I will come in and replace the wallpaper.
This will entail either the one wall. Or possibly redoing the entire room.
The wallpaper is by Thibaut, and is called “Giselle.” The homeowner will replace it with exactly the same pattern and colorway.
Wall-mounted fixtures are popular in some contemporary style homes. They present the problem of splashing water onto the wallpaper . The are tricky to cut around when hanging the paper. If possible and in the budget, it’s best to have a plumber come remove the fixtures. If the faucet cannot be removed, then I will have to make a lot of “relief cuts” in order to work the paper around the obstacles. Then very careful and precise trimming with a sharp blade around the escutcheons (wall plates) of the fixtures. These cuts do present more openings that splashed water can wick into, which could lead to curled seams. Done!
Kinda reminds me of a Maharishi. It was tough going around those wall-mounted fixtures.I centered the pattern on the sink wall, so it would look uniform and balanced around the mirror. Moving from left to right around three walls, the pattern almost perfectly centered itself on this rear wall. Signature wallpaper by Brewers.
I love it when homeowners are daring with pattern and color. This powder room has certainly jumped to a grander incarnation!
The material is “non-woven,” a synthetic material. It can be hung by pasting the wall, but, since it was rather thick and stiff, I pasted the back of the wallpaper, to ensure more pliability.
The new home is in the Midtown / Third Ward area of Houston.
Townhome’s 3rd floor bar / game room, with sample of the wallpaper to be placed here. The homeowner and I worked together to plot the layout. She had specific ideas about placement. So I positioned “the girl with the rays” (actually, her earring) smack in the center of the wall horizontally. Other considerations were taken as to which elements to place at the top of the wall.Close-upThis is the sample that came from the manufacturer. It includes a snippet of the design, as well as a shot of how it will look on a full-sized wall.This stuff is made in Transylvania!Mind the Gap is not your average wallpaper manufacturer!I love the little tags and inspirations they tuck inside the box with the paper.
The home is in the Midtown / Third Ward area of central Houston. The manufacturer is Mind the Gap, and the design is called “Other Worlds”. The wallpaper is made to order. It’s on a non-woven substrate.
I used the paste-the-wall installation method, but I think that pasting the paper would have worked better for this material, because it was very thick and stiff and unyielding…. difficult to work into corners and ceiling lines, and this caused it to crease easily. Pasting the back of the material would have softened it and made it more flexible and pliable.
See that 3 1/2″ wide stripe of bare wall to the left of the strip of wallpaper? In order to cover this with wallpaper, I will need to take a full 9′ high strip of 27″ wide paper – that’s more than 20 square feet – and cut off just 4″ from the one side. The rest of that 9′ long strip of wallpaper will most likely go into the trash bin.
This is a good example of why you can’t calculate how many rolls you need to paper a room by figuring up square footage. You simply are not able to use every square foot of paper on that bolt!
On-line calculators don’t take into account the waste factor from matching the pattern, and the pattern repeat, nor trimming at floor and ceiling, or around objects (windows, doors, cabinets). Or situations like in the photo above, where most of the strip will go to waste.
Again – always best to have the wallpaper hanger measure first and calculate how much paper you need before you buy.
Schumacher may have a high-end name and price tag, but I am not impressed with the quality. Some of their materials are very difficult to work with. Another thing is, you can almost always count on printing defects.
In this case, there were a few tiny specs of black here and there. Most were on the back, but at least two appeared on the pink surface of the paper.
I am thinking maybe an oily chalk of some sort. And they were “active.” Meaning, if I tried to wipe them off, either dry or with a dap cloth, or attempted to lift them out of the paper with a razor blade, they smeared. That would not wipe off, so we would be left with a visible smudge on the paper.
I have engineered this first strip so that the stripe falls smack in the center of this accent wall. It will create a nice balance around the headboard of the little girl’s bed.
I am using the red light, vertical line of my laser level to ensure this first strip of wallpaper goes up nice and plumb.
With all four walls, plus the woodwork, painted pink, one accent wall in a simple stripe on a subtle background adds just the right touch of contrast. And the perfect backdrop for the bed, dresser, and hutch.
The furniture is in the French Provincial style. It was the mother’s childhood furniture, so it is a treasure being passed on to her daughter, who is moving up to her “big girl’s room.”
The wallpaper manufacturer is Schumacher. This is a traditional print on a traditional substrate, so it went up without the hassles I usually expect from this brand.
Before. Textured wall has been smoothed, and is primed and ready for wallpaper. The pattern comes in “A” and “B” rolls, which is atypical. In the photo I am plotting strips and rolling everything out, before cutting anything up. Done!The pattern highlights special features and landmarks of Brooklyn. I’d sure like to know who the guy with the crown is. I get a kick out of all the Jewish guys. The dancing men – I can just hear the strains of Hava Nigala! Close-up. This was a pre-pasted material – simple installation process and dries nice and flat. Manufacturer is Flavor Paper. Flavor Paper prints on many different substrates – and most are quite tricky to work with. The homeowner took my advice and went with the pre-pasted (EZ Papes) option. This material went up like a dream, and will cling nice and tight to the wall for years to come.
Not many babies can brag a decorating scheme like this! The pattern reminds the homeowner of her time in New York City.
The 1920 bungalow is in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston.
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