Walls have been skim-floated smooth, primed, and are ready for wallpaper.Note that the wall-mounted faucet and handles have been removed to make the wallpaper install easier, and to eliminate a lot of relief cuts.This Peacock pattern is very popular. I’ve hung it a bunch of times.Rifle Paper is made by York , one of my favorite brands. This product is a non-woven / paste-the-wall material.
These are the plumbing stems for wall-mounted handles and faucet in a powder room in the Heights neighborhood of Houston. The homeowner had the fixtures removed to make the wallpaper installation easier and with fewer ” relief cuts ” in the paper. This helps to eliminate chances of splashed water hitting open edges of the paper and wicking up inside, which can cause curling at the seams. But the holes were a tad too big for the escutcheons (decorative back plates) to cover. The hole around the left handle gaps about a half an inch outside the plate (not pictured). I wanted to close that gap a little bit, and also to provide a firm surface for the wallpaper to stick to. I cut ” collars ” out of scrap non-woven material. This material is very strong, and won’t stretch or warp out of shape. Non-woven makes a fine substrate for today’s wallpapers. In the photo, I have placed them around the plumbing stems.I impregnated the “collars” with Gardz, which is a penetrating primer which soaks in and binds surfaces together, and then dries hard – a lot like varnish or shellac. Then I skim-floated the area with drywall joint compound (” mud “), let dry, sanded smooth, wiped off dust with a damp sponge, and then primed with Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime, my favorite wallpaper primer. So this photo shows the finished task. When the plumber comes to re-install the faucet, etc., if the holes are too small, he can simply cut some away. Now that the opening is smaller, the escutcheon easily covers it.
I prepped this powder room in the Energy Corridor area of Houston a couple of months ago, but couldn’t hang the wallpaper due to discovering printing defects. Printing defects are pretty common with that brand – Schumacher . So the homeowner ordered a different pattern from a different manufacturer. So I was dismayed today when the very first foot I rolled off the bolt of the new paper showed a very noticeable printing flaw. Luckily, this was just in this one spot, and was easily sliced off and discarded.I centered the pattern so it will look nicely balanced flanking the mirror once it is rehung over the sink.This pattern is obviously a knock-off of the famous ” Bird & Thistle ” pattern by Brunschwig and Fils, a French company. But the B&F is very expensive, and also delicate and also somewhat difficult to hang. Do a Search (upper right) to see other times I’ve hung it. I like this version much better, because it’s on a sturdy and dependable non-woven substrate. And much less expensive. Also, the design is on a smaller scale, which is much better suited to this powder room. The B&F would work best in a large dining room, for instance. The material has a pearlized, metallic look. It was pretty delicate, and would crease if you barely looked at it. I used a lot of tricks to prevent this creasing, and was really pleased with how the room turned out.
Due tomold issues, there isnew Sheetrock on the wall to the right, and some of the paper removed by the contractor around areas where he was working. He also added crown molding at the top of the wall, so removed a few inches of wallpaper below the molding. This is preferable to him putting the molding right on top of the wallpaper. Unfortunately, his blade cut through not just the wallpaper, but through the wallpaper primer and into the drywall. Here you can see the top paper layer of drywall peeling loose.
This is bad, because it allows for an unstable sub-surface, and creates the potential for anything (paint, wallpaper) put on top of it to also come loose as it dries and puts tension on the wall.
I skim-floated over the areas, then primed on top. Hopefully this will keep everything buried and sound.
Pattern mis-match at seams.Faint vertical lines running through both the left and right sides of an entire bolt. Brand is Exclusive Wallcoverings. This is a non-woven material. It’s rare to have defects from this company.
Because of the configurations of this room, I was able to weedle and deedle and place these flaws in areas where they were not noticeable. This took a lot more time, but yielded a pleasing finished look.
I installed wallpaper in this powder room in far west Houston a few months ago, and was back to measure the dining room. Couldn’t resist the opportunity to snap a photo of the finished room.
Re yesterday’s post, the large red poppy is a dominant feature in this wallpaper design, and could easily steal the show. I didn’t want it at the top of the wall, as I thought it would feel top-heavy. When the homeowner mentioned that she really loves the red flower, I worked to place it prominently. I found two heights that were aesthetically pleasing and alternated the flowers between the two heights. I also centered the flower in the wall space when possible, which you can see gave a very pleasing, balanced look. None of the red flowers was cut off by a door frame or molding. The short areas over the doors coupled with the vertical foliage in the design gave me a lot of wiggle room to fudge things and play with placement. All this plotting and engineering took a whole lot of time – but I really enjoy the challenge of it all.Gave the eye a break from repetition here by not centering the poppy. Aquafleur in Anthrocite colorway by Mind The Gap out of Transylvania. installer houston spring champions forest
This kitchen in the Spring area of north Houston suffered severe water damage from burst pipes during the hard freeze in February 2021. Nearly a year later, they are almost finished with repairs, including new drywall on bottom of walls, new cabinets, new plumbing, cabinets, electrical, and more. Here you see the contractor’s repair work on top of some of the original wallpaper, which dates to the early 1980’s! It was a good brand, and the installer did a great job. For various reasons, I opted to leave this wallpaper in place, and so skimmed over uneven areas and then primed on top of it with Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime. The homeowner’s new choice is very similar to the previous paper, but with a more springy feel and a lot of upward movement. The area below the chair rail will receive another coat of paint to better define the correct yellow color. Or, the homeowner may switch to a green pulled from the leaves in the pattern.This wall with the fir-down / soffit was a real bugger, for various reasons, and took me about four hours.Looks so sharp against the white paint and tile!The wallpaper was printed on a white substrate, so I ran black chalk along the edges of each strip, to try to prevent white from showing at the seams. Still, some of the strips shrank just a half a tad, and that did allow some white to show. This wallpaper is a non-woven material, which has a high polyester content, and is not supposed to stretch or shrink, so this is disappointing. Pasting the wall and dry-hanging the material would have probably helped. But the material was extremely thick and stiff, and plus the room had way too many turns and bends and angles, so pasting the paper made the most sense. These gaps are very minor, and only visible when viewed from straight on; from an angle you can’t even see them. On some papers, I can pull some tricks out of my bag and camouflage them. But with this non-woven material, don’t even try anything with paint, marker, chalk or anything else – it will surely stain the material. The walls are smooth. The slight texture you see is the non-woven material. When an edge is torn, you can actually see the polyester fibers – a lot like fiberglass. This material is very strong, and is designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate. Manufacturer is Mind The Gap out of Transylvania (!), and the design is called Aquafleur, in the Anthracite color. The material comes as a 3-panel set, which they call one “roll.” The overall width of the A, B, and C panels side-by-side is about 5′, and the height is just under 10′. The height of the wall was less than 5,’ and the strips were nearly 10′ long, so at least 5′ was lost of each strip. Because the pattern was a mural type, rather than a typical repeating wallpaper design, even more paper was lost in working around the configurations of the room – for instance, a full 10′ strip would be needed to paper just one 9″ high strip above the door. So there was an incredible amount of waste – and this is a higher-priced boutique brand. But the lady of the house really loves it, and so she went with her heart. installer houston champions forest
I hung this bold and fun pattern a few years ago in a Spring (north Houston) laundry room. I’m back this week to wallpaper their kitchen, so took a minute to snap this shot.
It has a hand painted , water color -y look. I don’t remember the brand, but I’m thinking it’s from the Joanna Gaines Magnolia Home Collection in the SureStrip line by York.
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