Galleria / Tanglewood Hall Bathroom Updated and Brightened

What a beautiful, fresh, floaty view as you come up the stairs of this townhome.

Here’s what was there before. Early ’90’s , solid vinyl that was both outdated and beginning to succumb to humidity ( curl at the seams ).

The previous installers (most likely a DIY homeowner couple) had hung the vinyl over existing wallpaper. I stripped off the vinyl, but, for various reasons, I was unable to remove the bottom, original wallpaper. Here is the room after I patched areas, skim-floated over seams, and primed with 123 by Zinsser.

Same view, cloaked in beautiful shimmery , pearlized floral wallpaper .

Over the shower view.

The homeowner was worried about using a modern wallpaper with her ’70’s tile . Replacing the tile was out of the budget . But the interior designer assured her that since the paper had a bit of yellow in it, that it would work nicely with the tile. Boy, was he right! The colors go together perfectly.

Toilet alcove view. The whole re-do was started by a water leak that caused the plumbers to cut a hole in the wall to the right of the toilet.

I don’t usually recommend covering switchplates and outlet covers , because they get soiled quickly. But the homeowner really liked the look of them covered, and she lives alone so promised to keep fingers off the plates . 🙂

This wallpaper is in the Canidice Olson line by York , one of my favorite companies, and was a delight to work with. It is thin and breathable, and will hold up much better in a humid bathroom than the previous vinyl option.
The paper was purchased from Calico on West Alabama in central Houston .
The client was assisted by Ron Dillon , who is an interior designer as well as has sold wallpaper for more than 20 years. He was an immense help to my client, who was dealing with many stressors and uncertainties during this bathroom re-do.

Pocket Book Friendly Chinoiserie Mural

Getting ready to apply my Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime wallpaper primer.

Finished mural install.

Birds and flowers and trees – classic Chinoiserie themes.

Although it’s actually digitally-printed, it looks hand-painted.

Rebel Walls brand. Photo shows general simple installation instructions.

Burst pipes from the deadly February 2021 freeze here in Texas caused major water damage to the first floor of this home in the Memorial Villages area of Houston. The drywall walls and ceiling, wooden floors, kitchen cabinetry, electrical, plumbing, and more had to be yanked out and replaced.

The homeowner took advantage of this chaos to reimagine her master bedroom. Searching the likes of Pintrest and other sites, she fell in love with the concept of Chinoiserie (Oriental) murals … but not the price tag. The custom-made, hand-painted silk murals such as de Gournay, Gracie, and Fromental imported from China can cost from $1000-$1500+ per panel … and this sole wall took 12 panels. !

I encouraged her to explore other options, including digitally-printed custom murals on a durable non-woven substrate. A good number of manufacturers are making these, but Rebel Walls comes to the top of the heap for selection, quality, and customer service.

This wallpaper mural was easy to hang, and will be easy to remove when the time comes. Best of all, it’s as beautiful as the fancy-schmancy brands … but with a price tag that is much easier on the budget.

Rebelwalls rebelwalls.com

Recent Magazines With Wallpaper

December 2019 issues of:

Victoria –

First two photos, bold color and classic jardiniere in a very traditional dining room setting.

Southern Living –

3rd photo. Mural on dining room walls. I believe this is the Etched Arcadia pattern that I have hung (and loved) several times. (Do a Search here to see previous posts with this pattern.)

4th photo. A “man cave” done with dark wall treatment and a lighter, tight textured pattern on the ceiling.

5th photo. Large honeycomb wooden lattice on ceiling, small print on walls. The wallpaper is by Iksel, a high-end British company, and one that I visited when the Wallcovering Installers Association took a Tech Trip to England in 2017 (do a Search here). This paper is expensive and the design is well-suited to the room. Yet the pattern is, well, nothing really special about it. If someone were looking to recreate this look on a budget, it would be very possible to find something similar at a more pocketbook-friendly price.

6th photo. Boy’s room, showing interesting use of color between walls and wood.

7th photo. More adventurous use of color, on ceiling and walls. The paper is by Quadrille, which is notorious for being difficult to hang. (Do a Search here to read my experiences and comments.) Again – for every cool pattern by a high-fallutin’ designer brand that hasn’t researched how to make compatible inks and substrates and good quality paper, there are other main-stream companies making similar designs, that will perform better and hit your wallet more easily.

Trouble Brewing? Paint Not Adhering to Wall

Top photo: A small circle of paint had been pulled away from the wall. When I picked at it, I was able to easily detach more paint.

Second photo: When I removed the light switch plate, some paint had stuck to it, and pulling the switch plate off the wall took some of the paint underneath along with it.

The exposed wall underneath the paint was gritty and dusty. I could not tell if it was a layer of old paint, drywall, dust, residue from ancient wallpaper paste, or other. I had the feeling that if I had tried, I could have peeled all the paint off the dusty subsurface.

This is not good.

This is an old house, and many layers of paint and other treatments have been added to the walls over the decades (100 years!). Many of these substances are not compatible with each other, and especially not if the walls were not prepped properly before applying another coat of paint.

Latex paint won’t stick to oil based paint. New paint won’t stick to a glossy paint. Nothing sticks to a dusty surface.

All these various materials will adhere to one another – for a while. But when a stressor is added to the formula, there is the potential for the layers to delaminate (come apart). That’s what happened in the two areas above, when a bit of a tug was all it took to peel several layers of paint away from the wall.

The issue here is that wallpaper comes with its own stressors. Wallpaper gets wet when it’s pasted, expands a bit, and then when the paste dries, the paper shrinks a tad and puts tension on the walls. Over time, with changes in temperature and humidity, foundations shifting, and just plain old passage of time, this tension could cause the paint to give way from the walls – this usually manifests at along a seam.

I use a wallpaper-specific primer, and among its attributes is the ability to withstand this type of tension.

Let’s hope that over the years, the many layers of paint, the new coat of primer, and the wallpaper all work together to stay nice and tight to the wall.

Note: If I had known about the wall condition earlier, and if the homeowners’ budget had allowed, a liner would have been a good option in this case. A liner is a special type of paper that is applied to the primed wall the day before the paper goes up. It serves several purposes, but one is to distribute tension across the wall. Because the seams of the liner do not line up with the seams of the wallpaper, drying and shrinking wallpaper puts tension on the liner, and not onto the unstable wall itself, thus pretty well eliminating the chance that the wallpaper seams could cause the wall to delaminate.

The downside is that using a liner adds an extra day (or more) of labor, plus the cost of material.