Shimmery Trees

Before … Heavy stipple / sand texture on drab sage green semi-gloss paint.
I skim-floated the walls , sanded smooth , primed with Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime wallpaper primer and …

Here’s the finished sink area of this hall bathroom .

Before shot of tub and window wall .

So much brighter and livelier!

Close up . It’s hard to see from these photos, but the colors are pewter, silver, and metallic silver.

The paper also has a lightly textured surface .

The pattern is called Hedgerow and the brand name is Super Fresco.
Every other SF I’ve hung has been on a non-woven / paste-the-wall substrate , so I was surprised to discover that this one was a paste-the-paper material , and that the backing is a paper / pulp material , with textured vinyl laminated to the surface.
My issue with this is that, historically, these paper-backed solid vinyl wallpapers don’t hold up well in humid areas , such as bathrooms.
Humidity in the air can actually be wicked up through the seams and then settle on the paper backing , which is absorbent and thirsty. Once that paper absorbs moisture, it’s going to expand . Since there is nowhere for it to go, it will push back against the wall , and that can cause the seam to curl up and pull away from the wall.
Oftentimes, the paper backing actually delaminates (comes apart) from the vinyl surface. This is not a “loose seam” and cannot be repaired.
You pretty much have to replace the whole strip. Or, more likely, to replace the entire wall, from one corner to the next.
Proper wall prep , including a primer made for use under wallpaper , goes a long way toward avoiding these sorts of occurrences.
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Lively Starburst Kitchen Update

Sink / window area, primed and ready for wallpaper.

Pattern nicely centered on this wall and at ceiling line.

Breakfast area window wall before.

I tweaked the pattern just a tad so I could get the dark vertical line along the cabinets on the right, and then also down the left side where this wall meets the painted wall. It makes a nice stopping point for the eye, and it looks so much better than box motifs that might have been chopped in half.

The “star” design adds so much energy and life to this room!

The pattern is in the Sure Strip line of pre-pasted wallpapers by York Wallcoverings. I really like Sure Strip.
Graham & Brown makes a very similar design called Indigo, which is very popular. I like this one better, for lotsa reasons.
The home is in Pearland, a southern suburb of Houston.
Some previous posts show other rooms I did at that same time. The homeowners did a wonderful job of coordinating the colors and themes throughout the home, working with golds and greys.
The wallpaper and design help came from Ballard Designs new physical store on W. Gray in Montrose / River Oaks.
After I arrived to start work, the homeowner decided she wanted the paper behind the refrigerator and also over a bank of cabinets to the right over the ovens. I hadn’t measured for these areas, so we didn’t have enough paper. Ballard could order more, but it would take several weeks to arrive.
So I had the homeowner contact my favorite resource, Dorota Hartwig at Sherwin-Williams on University in the Rice Village. (713) 529-6515. She’s been slingin’ paper for decades, and knew right where to go that could supply the same paper in just a few days.
The additional two bolts arrived yesterday, so I was able to hang them and finish the job today, right on schedule. 🙂
This home suffered extensive water damage to the entire first floor due to burst pipes after the major freeze here in Houston in February 2021. It’s taken these folks more than a year to get their home back together. I was proud to help them get their home and lives back to normal – and a good bit prettier!

Creating Wallpaper To Cover An Area That Was Not Planned For

When I first consulted with this family about wallpapering one wall in the master bedroom closet, the homeowner didn’t tell me that she also wanted an 11″ wide outside corner (sort of like a column) papered. No pic of that, sorry.
The mural to be used, shown above, was custom-sized to fit the main wall, so there wasn’t enough to cover this 11″ wide column.

But because the door and mirror covered up so much of mural, I figured I could use these unused areas to cover that column.

Here I’ve taken a scrap of the white sky area and applied it to the top of the column.

Now I’ve taken a section of the tree area that I liked the pattern of, and hung it on the lower 2/3 of the column.

Since I was making do with salvaged scraps, I had to take what was available. The top portion of this scrap is cut off, because it was used in the mirror / door area of the room. The straight cut doesn’t look so great.

So I used a scissors to cut along the design, creating a more natural edge of tree tops.

Overlaying this on top of the straight cut white sky area would result in a horizontal ridge under the paper. It would hardly be noticeable, but I could disguise it better. I used a pencil to mark the outline of the edges of the tree tops and then cut around it with a scissors. I made sure to leave about 1/2″ so the bottom printed tree paper would overlap on top of the sky area.

Here it is put back in place. Now the ridge follows the contours of the top edge, and is less noticeable.