Getting More Light Into A Room

This small hallway in a 1936 bungalow in the Eastwood neighborhood of Houston was very dark , with just this hanging light fixture . It’s gorgeous … Art Deco style , and probably original to the home. But just not putting off enough light for me to install wallpaper .
So here’s my easy solution . The metal fixture has an open hook type area that will hold my extension cord . But if not, I have dollar store hair bands (beauty dept) that I can rig up there to hold the cord. The plug-in socket s are available at Home Depot or the like for about two bucks. You can also plug them into a wall outlet .

Caulking Edge of Vanity to Prevent Wallpaper Curling

This powder room is in a home with two little kids , so you can expect splashing as people wash their hands , reach for the faucet handle, or grab a hand towel . Although Mom swears that the little ones are banned from this newly- decorated room ! But even adults can get water onto the walls.
If drops of water get onto the backsplash, they can accumulate along the edge where the wallpaper meets the marble . It’s possible that water can wick up under the cut edge of the wallpaper . This can cause the paper to expand and then push away from the wall , resulting in a curled edge.
To prevent this, I like to take clear caulk and run it along the back of the backsplash , where it meets the wallpaper . This is the white line you see. As the caulk dries , it will turn clear , and be invisible . The dried caulk is water-resistant and will seal that edge quite nicely.
I like water-based caulks, because they’re easy to use and easy to clean up. But it’s important to get one that’s non-yellowing . A whole lot of them look good when applied, but in a year or two have yellowed and look kinda disappointing, for lack of a stronger word. Sorry – I didn’t get a photo of the brand I’m currently using. After application , I do usually take a wet finger and run it along the caulk to smooth it into place.
Painters who are better with caulk than I are bold enough to use white or other colors of caulk. I like the forgiveness of the clear .
This wallpaper pattern is called Brooklyn Toile and is by Flavor Paper . I like their EZ Papes pre-pasted option – not so much their vinyl or peel & stick .

Wallpaper in Better Homes & Gardens Magazine , May 2023 Issue

I always love to see wallpaper featured in a national publication . BH&G often does. This particular issue is also full of color and pattern – a nice shift away from the all-white or all-grey , minimalist look popular these days. Not all the articles included brand / pattern number , but similar designs can be found easily enough, especially if you visit my favorite source Dorota at the Sherwin-Williams in the Rice Village .

Delightfully bold and dark works wonderfully in a small powder room .

A little calmer .

More Bohemian / Indian / Middle East vibe.

Just please don’t get peel & stick . Ever. Read my info page link to the right.

Reminds me of postage stamps .

Beautiful Art Nouveau inspired design . Spoonflower makes lovely paper – as long as you get their pre-pasted smooth and not any other of their options. They have really innovative , fun patterns, too.
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Primer Drying Inconsistently

Here I’ve rolled on my favorite wallpaper primer , Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime . Since I’m going over flat water-based paint, I expected my primer to dry smoothly and quickly.
So I was surprised when I looked back 30 minutes later and saw that some areas were wet and had actually thickened up a bit and pushed away from the wall.

Here is looks like it’s actually sweating . This is most likely due to what is on the surface below – including below that surface. In other words, I think somewhere along the line, the wall was painted with semi-gloss paint. The gloss finish won’t allow moisture to pass through it, so the moisture stays on the surface longer. Possibly also, something in one or more of the base surfaces holds on to moisture , so that it is not allowed to dry and evaporate into the air . These principles would hold true even if another coat paint , even matt finish paint, was applied on top.
I ended up bringing a fan in from my van and aiming some moving air onto that wall to speed dry time .

Waiting To Trim The Skinny Strip

Here I am, hanging wallpaper from left to right . I’ve just placed the narrow strip on the left – but have not trimmed it against the door molding all the way down. This is because skinny strips like this are often unstable and can twist to the right or left, or fall with an edge that’s not straight . This makes it difficult for the subsequent strip to butt up against it perfectly .
The strip on the right is still folded and booked , and I’ll release it and position it in a minute .

So I’m going to hang that next, full-width strip now. Because it’s wider, it’s more dimensionally-stable , and will fall ceiling-to-floor without warping or twisting . Especially true since this is a non-woven material, which are quite strong and stable .
Note I’ve striped a little thinned pink paint under where the seams will fall, to prevent the white wallpaper primer from showing, in case there are tiny gaps at the seams (which can be common).

Here you see that there is, indeed, a gap between the full-width strip on the right and the narrow one on the left. Because I have not yet trimmed that narrow strip on its left edge against the door molding, I’m able to move that narrow strip a teeny bit to the right, to eliminate that gap.

Here it is with the gap closed.
Note, that little bump on top the baseboard on the left is caused by caulk or debris or something – it’s a near-100 year old house with decades of build up of paint and whatnot. Not a biggie. The homeowners love their historic home !

Here’re both strips trimmed and smoothed into place.
Oh, and also my standard go-to tools .

The pattern is called Indienne , in the Amaranth colorway .

Manufacturer is House of Hackney . Good quality paper , and innovative patterns and colors .
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Paint Around Intricate Moldings

I’ll be hanging grasscloth / sisal wallcovering today. This material is thick and stiff and difficult to see and feel through, and equally hard to cut through.
In addition, the backing on this particular product (by Phillip Jeffries ) pretty much turns to mush once it gets wet with wallpaper paste , so, under the blade, it drags and tears and pulls away from the grass fibers , leaving gaps .
All of which means that it’s tricky to get tight, clean trims when you’re going around intricate moldings such as in the photo.
So here I’m using paint of a complimentary color and shade to fill in around the molding edges. That way, in case the wallpaper won’t trim perfectly tightly against the molding, my white wallpaper primer won’t show through.

I use plain old matt finish acrylic craft paint from Texas Art Supply (which is close to me) or any craft store , and a small, angled artist’s brush .

Flavor Paper Printed Too Close To The Top

In most rooms, when plotting where to position the motifs printed on the wallpaper, you usually consider the top of the wall just below the ceiling. (If the room has a chair rail / wainscoting , or if another feature like a vanity or countertop is dominate , you might position the motifs to fall appropriately along the top of those features.)
Back to the ceiling line … You usually want to place a motif at the top of the wall. Because ceilings are never level and walls are never plumb, it’s common for ceilings to go off-track , slanting up or down. This means that, as you hang subsequent strips and move along the wall / room, the top of your motif can move closer to or further away from the ceiling.
In this photo , the man’s crown and the top of the roller coaster are the obvious designs to place at the top of the wall. Further down in the wallpaper pattern , any other motifs you might consider are staggered in such a way that if you put one element at the top of the wall, something would be cut off in an unpleasing way. In other words, if you place the hot air balloon at the top of the wall, then the train bridge and part of the roller coaster would be cut off.
In addition to that, you need an extra inch or two at top and bottom of each strip to allow for trimming at ceiling and floor. 1″-2″ hopefully.

So, you want the crown and the roller coaster at the top of the wall. Plus, you want a little play / extra clearance to allow for those crooked ceiling lines.
But this manufacturer has printed its most important motifs just about smack at the top of the strip. There’s no extra to allow for trimming or to accommodate wonky walls and ceilings. This wallpaper comes in panels of set heights, so there is no extra pattern repeat to roll off and discard until you get the motifs you want.
As it is, if you try to place that crown at the top of the wall, as you move around the room, it’s quite likely that the crown will move upward and be cut off by the ceiling. OR that it can move down, and that some of the manufacturer’s label will be exposed under the ceiling line.
I’ve sent my comments to the company, in hopes that they will start printing to give us a little more play at the top of each strip.
This pattern is called Brooklyn Toile , and is in the EZ Papes line of pre-pasted wallpaper by Flavor Paper . I like FP’s EZ Vapes a lot. But not their heavier vinyl, and definitely not their peel & stick material .

More Blue Heron Flight Mural

This is the kind of a room that you don’t just look at the walls – you have to stand in the room and feel it. Dusk settling into night , swooping birds , stormy clouds .

This looks a little like hand-stitched embroidery .

This textured natural material is a fine sisal , which is similar to grasscloth . The color between panels was pretty uniform , as you see at the seam toward the right of the photo .

These panels came 33″ wide . But for this last strip on the right, I only needed 23″ width. That means I would have 10″ of width , the length of the strip, to cut off and discard . If I had used the left side of the strip, which is logical installation sequence , we would have had birds’ butts sticking out from the side of the window molding . So I decided to trim off that left side and instead use the right side which, as you see, has a more pleasing bird’s face and wing .

The brand is Phillip Jeffries , a high-end company . The material comes as a 6-panel set . You have to purchase six panels, but after that, you can buy individual panels in sequence, so you’ll have enough to do your room , without having to purchase a full 6-panel set. Like I said – this stuff is pricey!
This dining room is in a renovated 1925 home in the Heights neighborhood of Houston .
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Phillip Jeffries Flight in Blue Heron in Heights Dining Room

Before shot of dining room in a beautifully restored and enlarged 1925 bungalow in the Heights neighborhood of Houston.
Just below dead center of photo, under the stairs – my helper couldn’t be less interested!

Swooping heron , and powerful , roiling, turbulent clouds .

This is a manila hemp product , which is similar to grasscloth , and has a texture d surface . As with most natural materials , the seams are always a bit visible .

The walls in this home were smooth , so no call for skim-floating or sanding … Just a primer was needed . My favorite primer for wallpaper is Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime .

This wallpaper comes in panels , and is custom made to order . All of the panels are rolled up into one long bolt , and you have to separate them, as you see here. AND keep them in the correct order / sequence ,

I was lucky that this house had a lot of open floor space , where I could roll out the panels to verify pattern match, panel sequence , and get accurate measurements.
Note that, like many high-end brands, this wallpaper comes with an unprinted selvedge edge , that has to be trimmed off by hand . Once I get the edges trimmed off , the birds you see in the photo above will match perfectly .

I trim against this Big Blue straightedge , and hold a single edge razor blade in my hand .

Sorry, I don’t know how to flip this photo. WordPress used to be easy to work … but some years back they came up with this ” New Editor ” which is, to be honest, a nightmare, and costs me a lot of time every evening.
End of rant. Here is a mock-up provided by the manufacturer , that shows the mural as a six- panel set , including pattern layout and dimensions of each panel .

Here are my drawings from when I first consult ed with the homeowner and we plotted out how the paper was to be install ed. Phillip Jeffries is expensive stuff!
Normally, with a mural , a full-height panel is required for even the 6″ high areas over the door ways. See photo below. This means that you’re paying for a lot – a LOT – of wallpaper that gets cut off and thrown into the trash.
But, since the panels are about 2′ taller than the walls , we figured that the part cut off the bottom of each strip could be used for the areas over the doorways (see next photo) , as well as above and below the windows (see last photo).
This will take no small amount of math and engineering , and the couple will have to live with some paneling / shading , and color variations between strips . But that’s typical of grasscloth type products , anyway. Accepting a few color differences will save this couple a few – thousand – dollars. Yes, I told you that PJ was expensive stuff!
And I’m up for the challenge !

Here’s the one area I’ve done so far, using scraps discarded from the bottoms to piece in over the top of the entryway . This area is only 6″ high , so color variations won’t be very noticeable . Still, it really turned out well.

Getting a similarly pleasing look on this wall , with heights over and under the windows being much higher than 6″ , will be tomorrow’s challenge. Stay tuned!

Frutto Proibito in Powder Room Revisited

I hung this wallpaper a year or two ago and was back to paper the dining room this week, so had a chance to peek into the powder room and get a “finished” photo. Here it is with lights off.

With lights on.

South wall. I love the window molding and vanity painted to complement the wallpaper .
This is in a beautifully remodeled and enlarged bungalow in the Heights neighborhood of Houston .
This lively and fun pattern is called Frutto Proibito and is in the adventurous Fornasetti collection by Cole & Son .
It’s a popular pattern, and I installed it a number of times, including a few months ago in a Montrose laundry room. https://wallpaperlady.wordpress.com/2023/02/24/cole-son-monkeys-liven-up-laundry-day/
This material is a DIY -friendly non-woven / paste the wall type of wallpaper . It’s strong , durable , stain-resistant , and will strip off the wall easily and with no damage to the wall when it’s time to redecorate .