See the difference between the motifs on these two different strips of wallpaper ? The ones on the top are crisper and more distinct , with more space between the black lines. The motifs on the bottom have heavier black lines and appear a bit smudged . Not a huge difference , but on the wall , especially from a distance , your eye would catch this. Interestingly enough, all these rolls were from the same batch / run number (all printed at the same time with the same ink and printing press ). In fact, one roll started out “normal” and progressively got darker . It probably would have looked OK to use this darker paper, especially since this was a powder room and you couldn’t step back far enough to see a number of strips next to each other. But we had enough wallpaper that I could put these aside and use fresh strips with crisp ink to finish the room. A good reason to always buy a little extra wallpaper ! The pattern is Les Touches and is by Brunschwig & Fils .
Something smells like moth balls ! Some high-end hand screened wallpapers are printed with what we call stinky inks . These inks often fight with the substrate they’re printed on. The backing of the wallpaper will absorb moisture from the paste and expand , but the ink on the surface won’t, so you end up with what we call waffling or quilting . Wrinkles in the wallpaper in between the printed inked areas. Do a Search here to see photos and read more about this. You can reduce or eliminate this by evening out the moisture between front and back. It’s as simple as taking a very lightly damp sponge and wiping the front printed surface of the wallpaper. Then paste the back as normal , book (fold pasted side to pasted side), roll up, place in black trash bag for a few minutes. Now the wallpaper should be relaxed , and the wrinkles should be evened out . Now you’re ready to hang wallpaper ! This pattern is called Les Touches and is by Brunschwig & Fils , a higher-end designer type brand .
Vanity backsplash wall . Pattern nicely centered .Toilet wall. It’s usually not possible to center a second wall in most rooms, but this one “just happened” to fall almost perfectly.The homeowner wanted something fun to wake up this traditional powder room. Well, here ya go! This is a pretty popular wallpaper pattern . Do a Search to see other installations I’ve done.Close-up.Mfgr is Brunschwig & Fils . The home is in the Galleria / Tanglewood area of Houston .
I love the way this syncs with the verdure outside the window. Cole & Son is a British company, with good quality, medium-priced wallpaper. Brunschwig and Fils is a long-standing French company making higher-end goods – which can be a bit tricky to work with.
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.
Like many of the higher-end brands, this Brunschwig & Fils wallpaper had to have its selvedge edge trimmed off by hand. Unfortunately, they did not provide trim guide marks. Double unfortunately, I tried using the pattern as a guide, but, for a lot of reasons, this was a big fail – the edges looked like they had been trimmed with a hair curling iron. 😦
How, then, was I going to get good seams?
I was preparing to double cut (splice). But for many reasons, this was not presenting as a good option.
Then I got the idea to overlap. This turned out to be the perfect solution!
The edges of the “bookshelves” were not straight, so, instead of using my straightedge as a trim guide, I grabbed a new razor blade and free-handed my cuts along the design. (see top photo)
Then, after measuring, pasting, and booking my strips, I positioned them on the wall by overlapping one “shelf support” on top of the previous one. The second photo shows one strip being placed thusly.
Overlapping like this does leave a ridge under the wallpaper. But it is not very noticeable, especially since my design motifs were perfectly aligned.
What’s even cooler is that this overlap added a bit of 3-D to the room, which is what you would have if you had real wood and books in there.
Another advantage is that I could tweak the spacing if needed, to plumb up a strip that might have started going crooked.
In the top photo, I have used a paint roller to apply paste to the back of this wallpaper. See it wrinkling up? We call this “waffling,” or “quilting.”
This happens because the ink on the surface absorbs moisture from the paste at a different rate from the substrate. So they both expand, but fight each other, which causes the wrinkles you see in the picture.
One way to minimize this is to lightly sponge the surface of the paper with clean water. In the upper left of the top photo you can see my sponge and bucket of water. You can also use a spray bottle.
After pasting, the strip is “booked” and then rolled up like a newspaper and placed into a plastic trash bag to sit for a few minutes. This gives the paper and ink a chance to absorb all that moisture.
Some papers are still cantankerous when they get to the wall. But my experience with Brunchwig & Fils and their Bibliotheque is that, with proper smoothing and minimal manipulation, it smooths and adheres quite nicely to the wall. The wrinkles and quilted areas disappear.
The only wrinkles that remained were inside the horizontal “shelves” (see second picture). Most of these either could be chased out with a smoothing too, or laid flat once the paper dried. A handful of them remained even after the wallpaper was dry, but were not very noticeable.
The homeowner loved this paper, and had to have it somewhere in her family’s new home in Humble, in far northwest Houston. The powder room turned out to be the perfect spot!
Originally the room was faux-finished in a heavy and rough “Tuscan” texture painted a dark reddish brown color. This classic wallpaper pattern changes the whole look, bringing an air of elegance.
The paper has a toned-down silver metallic look, with soft seafoam colored tree trunks, foliage, and birds on it. The ceiling was painted a coordinating soft murky blue, and the wallpaper coordinated beautifully with the tile.
It was quite thin. I like thin papers. The seams were practically invisible, and the paper was somewhat twisty – Sometimes that is good, because you can manipulate a strip to fit slightly off-plumb areas. But sometimes it’s not good, because warps and wrinkles can develop. In the powder room, this was not a big deal, because I never had more than three strips next to one another. But in a larger room with more strips hanging sequentially, it could be a problem.
This design is called Bird & Thistle, and is by Brunschwig & Fils, a British company and a higher-end brand.
OK, this is a wallpaper pattern and a use that you are going to either love or hate. It’s in a boy’s bedroom (all four walls), is by Brunschwig & Fils, and is featured in the December 2017 issue of Southern Living magazine.
The Wallpaper Lady's Blog 