Marfa Toile in Heights Powder Room

We considered putting the wallpaper on all four walls, but the pattern would have been overwhelming in a small under-the-stairs powder room , especially with sloped ceilings crunching down into the space.  So the homeowner opted to paper just this one accent wall over the vanity / sink . 

This family loves West Texas , and visits Marfa when they can.  I positioned so the cattle ’s feet march right above the backsplash , and the horse lines up against the right corner , and even right into the angle at the top

Here it is, with the light sconces back (shades will be added later), and the rustic mirror frame in place (mirror glass will be added later). 

Tucked some paper into the little cubbyhole on the left under the vanity . 

 Cows , cowboys , horses , teepees , mesas , cactus , booze , buffalo , pups , and Prada – that’s Marfa!
 

Marfa Toile is in the very popular City Toile line by Katie Kime .  This is a fairly heavy vinyl surface on a non-woven backing .  Not my favorite, but it was OK to work with.  I did the paste the wall installation method .

Tropical Foliage Re-Do – Peel & Stick Debacle UnDone

Re my previous post about an under-the-stairs powder room that the homeowners attempted to install an argumentative peel & stick material … here is the finished room after I stripped off the P&S, smoothed the walls, and hung the new wallpaper choice. I engineered to place the sole philodendron leaf down the center of the ceiling.

Where the under-the-stairs ceiling met the area over the door, the two surfaces came together in a very sharp angle. It was difficult to get in there and work, and to get the paper tight into the joint. Fingers can be too fat, so this is where tools can squeeze in there and save the day. This is also my kill point . Do a search here on that term for more info. A long story and maybe an hour or more of work, but you will note that there are no pattern mis-matches here. The homeowners were out of town, so I felt unpressured and could take as long as I needed to make these three areas look seamless.

I love the hand-painted, water colory look of this pattern.

This photo shows the joint where the walls meet the sloped under-the-stairs ceiling. A wallpaper pattern will never match perfectly in these situations. At first, I tried a few tricks to ” fool the eye .” But I decided it looked crisper and less distracting to just trim the two papers where they met. Here, we had the advantage that the tropical foliage pattern was busy enough that, I mean, really, when you step three feet back, who’s gonna notice a minor pattern mis-match, anyway? The pattern does match in the corners on either side behind the toilet, though (see photo). Even though this only 4.5″ high, it does lend subtle continuity to the room.

When I see Candice Olson, I fast forward to glitz and glam and glitter and shimmer. Here her tropical foliage design is a bit more main stream. York is the mother company, and I love their products.

This home is in the Heights neighborhood of central Houston.

Lots of Defects in Today’s Paper

There is a lot of “fuzzy stuff” along the edges of the seams.
But most concerning is that the seagulls do not match from one strip to the other.

This photo shows you why. Look at the gull next to my finger, and compare it with the gull by my pencil. The gull at the top of the roll is fatter – it has more white wing area. Obviously this run of wallpaper got trimmed “on the bias,” meaning that the rolls were not cut straight, but at a slight diagonal … sort of like a very long trapezoid. This results in the motifs being cut at an angle, with some wider than others. That means that the motifs are not going to match up perfectly at the seams.

In addition, one double roll bolt had abraded areas, as if something at the factory swept across the material and scraped off some of the ink. I cut off and discarded the worst of this. Luckily we had a little extra paper.

More fuzzy stuff. This shows on the surface. And it prevents the seams from meeting properly. I was able to remove some of it with a sanding block. But some of it remained, and affected the look of the finished job. Luckily, not extremely noticeable.

Anderson Prints

I’ve hung this paper before and not had these problems. I hope the issue is unique to this run, and subsequent runs will be back to being perfect.

I usually have the client order enough wallpaper that we can work around issues like this. Also, because of the layout of the room, and the fact that there is only one motif that has to be matched across a seam, and it’s relatively small, I’m going to be able to finish the room with it all looking O.K.

Getting a “Fat Cut” in Corners – Using a Euni Plate

You never wrap a strip of wallpaper around an inside corner.

Corners are neither straight nor true-to-plumb. So trying to wrap around a corner will result in a warped edge, and most likely a strip that is wonking off-plumb.

So you cut your strip of paper vertically in the corner, leaving a tiny bit wrapping onto the new wall. See second photo.

Your next strip of paper will overlap on top of this narrow wrap.

Splitting the strip and overlapping means that you will cover up and lose some of the wallpaper design. Hence, the less you wrap around the corner, the less of the design will be lost in the overlap.

The thickness of the rolled edge of this stainless steel plate / tool is just perfect as a trim guide! Trimming against the rolled edge will yield a 1/16″ – 1/8″ wrap around the corner. So, when you overlap your next piece (the strip you split in half vertically), you are only losing a fraction of the wallpaper design.

This tool has other uses as well – some are too complicated to get into here. But the thinner edge can be used as a trim guide for regular wallpaper work. It’s shorter than most trim guides, so it can be used in small areas. The rounded edges can be used to press paper into areas, or to crease paper before trimming – without leaving marks. And the angle has a purpose – again, too complicated for here. Plus, there are other plates with different angles available, each with different uses.

This ingenious gizmo was conceived by Eunice Bockstrom, a Canadian and fellow member of the Wallcovering Installers Association (WIA). Once or twice a year, she has a metal shop make a run of these metal plates. Eunice has also invented some other very helpful tools, and they also become available when the factory makes a run of them.

We call all of these Euni Tools. 🙂

Renegade Angled Screws

A lot of us contractors face the slots in switchplate screws facing either vertically, or sometimes horizontally.

Every now and then, I run into some renegade who positions the slots at an off, yet precise, angle.

There just can’t be many people doing this, so I believe I am working behind the same guy in various homes across the Houston metro area. Crazy coincidence!