Keeping the Pattern Match While Coming Around a Bank of Windows

Hanging wallpaper around windows is tough, because getting the pattern to match above the windows, and then down the side and then match up with the pattern under the window is really tricky.

ESPECIALLY in a room where the walls are out of plumb, and the ceiling is not level, and also considering that wallpaper naturally stretches and warps when it is wetted with paste, plus various other factors.

I was lucky that this was a non-woven material, which is “dimensionally stable” – meaning it (supposedly) won’t expand, nor twist or warp when it absorbs paste. So, theoretically, after papering over and then under the window, the final full-height strip along the right side should butt up with the strip above the window, and then the strip below the window. That, actually, did work out perfectly.

But I still had to deal with the potential for the pattern to track off kilter, due to all those un-plumb and un-level factors. If it got off a little, I could tweak it a bit by pulling the last strip either higher or lower – the pattern is forgiving, and you would not notice a small pattern mis-match – especially 11′ up and behind drapes.

But I wanted to minimize a potential pattern mis-match as much as possible.

I figured that if the pattern stayed straight across the top of the windows, and also stayed straight across the area below the windows, it would have to match up with the final 11′ strip to the right of the windows.

To keep the pattern straight and at the right height on the wall, I used a level and pencil to draw a horizontal line that corresponded to the top of a leaf motif in the pattern. I did this both above and below the window.

Then, while hanging the paper, I made sure to keep that particular leaf at the same height of the line I had drawn on the wall.

It was a bit trickier than that, because it was a drop match, which means that that leaf only showed up on every other strip. But it all worked out.

One trick is to keep the strip “open,” which means that you put it into position, but don’t trim at top or bottom until you get the following strip into place. That way, you have the option of moving the previous strip either up or down to match the pattern, or, in the event that it won’t match perfectly, you can split the difference and spread the pattern mis-match between the two strips.

But I didn’t have to do much splittin’. By keeping the leaf at the height of my pencil line, by the time that last strip fell into place, the design matched up perfectly both above and below the window.

Zig Zagging Across the Wall

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It’s been a month of “lines” type patterns, for me and for a number of paperhanger buddies around the country. The one I hung today on a headboard wall in an updated master bedroom in West University (Houston) is by Serena & Lily and is called “Etch.” It’s easy to see why!

Because the paper is dark, almost black, and because wallpaper often shrinks when it dries, leaving hair’s-breadth gaps at the seams that can reveal the white wall beneath it, I plotted where the seams would fall and then striped black paint under them, to prevent white wall from peeping out. The manufacturer helped, too, as you see in the fourth photo, where they have used a dark stock to print on, because a white backing might have shown at the seams.

Working your way around windows is always tricky with wallpaper, because the wet / pasted material stretches and expands and warps and twists, and that means that the piece you bring around and along side and finally down under the window might not butt up perfectly with the piece already under the window, and the pattern match might be off, too.

And that’s exactly what happened here… Although the wallpaper worked around the window on the right with no problems, on the window to the left (not shown), the wallpaper had twisted enough that it didn’t want to butt up against the strip under the window, the pattern didn’t match, and there was a large diagonal wrinkle running from the corner of the window to the left edge of the wallpaper. I don’t have a photo of it, but it was there.

This was an easy pattern to deal with that, though. What I did was, I cut along the bottom edge of one part of the pattern (see photo), pulled that strip up and smoothed out any wrinkles on the wall, then replaced it onto the wall, allowing it to overlap the bottom segment of that strip that was still clinging to the wall (see photo). Voilà! There is no wrinkle or twisted paper on the wall, everything is nice and flat and tight, and you absolutely cannot detect that the pattern is a wee bit off.

And, last photo, the entire day’s trash, all rolled up into one neat package, all ready for the recycling bin.