Focal wall before. With many patterns, the finished room looks better if the dominant features of the pattern can be centered . You may not consciously notice this, but the overall room just feels more cohesive and balanced . Here I’ve located the horizontal center of the wall , and placed the skinny tree running vertically down that line . Same thing on this section of wall, but I used the alternate tree figure, which is wider and filled the space better.
It’s kind of tricky finding the center of a design like this, because it’s not symmetrical and elements of it move to left and right , and some are wider than others. So it helps to be able to pull up a room-scale image on-line , or to lay a couple of rolls out next to each other on the floor and look at the pattern from a distance.
It was cool that this dining room had lots of individual spaces , separated by windows and doors .
And extra cool that these features reached up almost all the way to the ceiling. AND that the design was loose and flowing . That’s what allowed me to fiddle with the pattern and center the trees on each individual section of wall . Normally a pattern would have to match all the way around the room. But here you would never notice if a tree branch didn’t perfectly match the next tree branch way up 9′ high over the window that was only 2″ high .
On those short areas over the windows and doors, I overlapped the left and right strips a small amount, and then cut along one of the branches to disguise the mis-matched pattern.
Since there were two tree figures to the design , I varied what I placed in the center of each wall, to prevent every visual vignette from being the same.
It was fun plotting all this out and executing the layout . I love when my work environment is nice and quiet and I have the space and time to play around like this .
The pattern is called Luminous Branches and is by York . It’s a material made by a good brand .
The existing wallpaper in this sink / vanity room of a hall bathroom is unique, because instead of coming in rolls, it came in pieces of torn paper, each about the size of a paper plate, that were placed on the wall in random ways, with the pieces overlapping each other. This was a fairly popular wallpaper option back in the ‘90’s. I’m to hang new wallpaper in this room, so my first step was to remove the torn paper. This started out seeming easy, because the paper was literally falling away from the wall – but only around the top, and only the top 5” or so. The lower areas were stuck nice and tight to the wall. What’s going on?The original installer hung his wallpaper directly on new drywall / Sheetrock , with no primer and no other prep. Turns out that, under this wallpaper, there are actually several different types of wall surfaces related to the new drywall. The main part of drywall is grey in color . But here you see a band of white running along the top of the wall, under the ceiling, about 5” wide. This is where the joint compound was applied , to smooth over joints , drywall tape , and nail heads . But the curious thing is that the wallpaper is adhering to the drywall – but not to this white band of joint compound below the ceiling line. The reason? After the drywall guys sanded this area smooth, no one wiped off the dust left over from sanding . Thus, there was a layer of dust on the wall, between the wall and the wallpaper. Well, the wallpaper paste wants to bite into a solid surface, and it can’t get a grip on dust. That’s why you see this top portion pulling away from the wall. I have a lot more prep to do in this room. But before moving forward, I took a sponge and bucket of water and wiped the dust off that top portion of wall. Now I’m assured that any smoothing compound or primer or wallcovering or other that is applied, will stick . For reference, here’s a shot of the un-primed drywall being uncovered as I strip off wallpaper in another area. This picture shows the sections of drywall , joint compound , and also paint (from overspraying the woodwork ). Wallpaper adheres to all these different surfaces in different ways. Another reason to always use a wallpaper primer – it will adhere to just about any surface, and will create a uniform coating for the wallpaper to adhere to. I like Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime.
If you’re hanging wallpaper around a room with four walls and four corners , virtually always when that last strip of paper meets up with the first strip you hung some hours ago, you’ll have a mis-match of the pattern . That’s why we try to tuck this in an inconspicuous place like a 1′ high corner above or behind a door. But sometimes you don’t have a hidden corner , and all four corners are highly visible and run the full height of the wall. In these cases, it looks much better for the pattern to match floor to ceiling , as you see in this photo. But you have to put the kill point somewhere!In these cases, a more logical and less noticeable location for the mis-match is the shorter area over the door – where nobody is going to be spending much time looking at, anyway. My first strip is on the left, and the rest of the powder room has been papered, and I’m working my way from the right to meet up with that strip on the left. Here it is going into place. I’ve matched the pattern on this new strip to the strip on the left . The strip is too wide, and is overlapping the strip on the right. And, as expected, the pattern doesn’t match up on the right. As an aside, that blue plastic tape you see at the top of the strip of wallpaper is to keep paste off the ceiling. Once I’ve trimmed that excess paper off, I’ll remove the tape , and the ceiling will be nice and clean – no paste residue to wipe off or worry that it will be visible or damage the paint / cause flaking . Here I’ve trimmed that short strip at ceiling and above the door trim. As you can see, it’s overlapping the strip on the right, leaving a bump, and plus, the pattern doesn’t match . To be honest, with this busy pattern and this short area up over a door , this 1′ of mismatch isn’t going to be very noticeable. But I wanted to make it look better. I’m going to splice these two strips together. In the photo above, the left strip is overlapping the strip on the right. I don’t like the way the pattern is lining up. A splice will leave branches cut off, and will be noticeable.So here I’ve reversed things and have overlapped the strip on the right on top of the strip on the left . Now the pattern gives a better option for a splice . I like that there is a curved vertical tree trunk that I can cut along. This will help disguise the splice. So now to do the splice, I have push hard enough on my blade to cut through two strips of paper. But it’s important to not score the wall surface beneath. When the wallpaper paste dries and the paper shrinks a tad, it will put tension on the wall surface . If that underlying surface is not unstable or not sound, due to being cut into, or dust is another factor , that tension can cause the wall surface to pull apart , and the wallpaper can come away from the wall. Actually, it’s not the wallpaper coming away – it’s the layers of the wall pulling apart. So I use these thin flexible polystyrene plastic strips under where the splice will be. You can’t cut through them!Here I’ve pulled the two strips of wallpaper away from the wall and am positioning the plastic strip under where the splice will take place. Next, I’ll smooth the two wallpaper strips back into place, with the right one overlapping the one on the left.I like to hold a single edge razor blade in my fingers , but you can use a blade holder or trim knife , too. Here I’ve free-handed my cut , trimming along the vertical tree trunk at the top , then straight down through blank area, then through some branches, and finally at the bottom again trimming along a curved vertical tree branch. Now I’m removing the excess from the left side of the trim / splice . Lifting the strip on the right so I can remove the excess piece that was trimmed off on the right.Now removing the polystyrene strip. Using my plastic smoother to gently press the two trimmed strips of wallpaper into place. Here it is all done. Trimming along the vertical branch at the top has helped disguise the splice. The bottom area doesn’t match 100% perfectly, but I’m OK with that. I’ll work on smoothing out that teensy overlap and the seam will be nice and flat. All done! The wallpaper pattern is called Luminous Branches and is by York . It’s non-woven / paste the wall material , and very nice to work with, durable , stain resistant , and will strip off the wall easily and with no damage when you redecorate . If you’re interested in the source for the splicing / double cutting strips , or the thin blue tape to keep paste off the ceiling, please email me at wallpaperlady@att.net
Here I am, hanging wallpaper from left to right . I’ve just placed the narrow strip on the left – but have not trimmed it against the door molding all the way down. This is because skinny strips like this are often unstable and can twist to the right or left, or fall with an edge that’s not straight . This makes it difficult for the subsequent strip to butt up against it perfectly . The strip on the right is still folded and booked , and I’ll release it and position it in a minute . So I’m going to hang that next, full-width strip now. Because it’s wider, it’s more dimensionally-stable , and will fall ceiling-to-floor without warping or twisting . Especially true since this is a non-woven material, which are quite strong and stable . Note I’ve striped a little thinned pink paint under where the seams will fall, to prevent the white wallpaper primer from showing, in case there are tiny gaps at the seams (which can be common). Here you see that there is, indeed, a gap between the full-width strip on the right and the narrow one on the left. Because I have not yet trimmed that narrow strip on its left edge against the door molding, I’m able to move that narrow strip a teeny bit to the right, to eliminate that gap. Here it is with the gap closed. Note, that little bump on top the baseboard on the left is caused by caulk or debris or something – it’s a near-100 year old house with decades of build up of paint and whatnot. Not a biggie. The homeowners love their historic home !Here’re both strips trimmed and smoothed into place. Oh, and also my standard go-to tools . The pattern is called Indienne , in the Amaranth colorway . Manufacturer is House of Hackney . Good quality paper , and innovative patterns and colors . wallpaper installer houston wallpaper lady
In most rooms, when plotting where to position the motifs printed on the wallpaper, you usually consider the top of the wall just below the ceiling. (If the room has a chair rail / wainscoting , or if another feature like a vanity or countertop is dominate , you might position the motifs to fall appropriately along the top of those features.) Back to the ceiling line … You usually want to place a motif at the top of the wall. Because ceilings are never level and walls are never plumb, it’s common for ceilings to go off-track , slanting up or down. This means that, as you hang subsequent strips and move along the wall / room, the top of your motif can move closer to or further away from the ceiling. In this photo , the man’s crown and the top of the roller coaster are the obvious designs to place at the top of the wall. Further down in the wallpaper pattern , any other motifs you might consider are staggered in such a way that if you put one element at the top of the wall, something would be cut off in an unpleasing way. In other words, if you place the hot air balloon at the top of the wall, then the train bridge and part of the roller coaster would be cut off. In addition to that, you need an extra inch or two at top and bottom of each strip to allow for trimming at ceiling and floor. 1″-2″ hopefully. So, you want the crown and the roller coaster at the top of the wall. Plus, you want a little play / extra clearance to allow for those crooked ceiling lines. But this manufacturer has printed its most important motifs just about smack at the top of the strip. There’s no extra to allow for trimming or to accommodate wonky walls and ceilings. This wallpaper comes in panels of set heights, so there is no extra pattern repeat to roll off and discard until you get the motifs you want. As it is, if you try to place that crown at the top of the wall, as you move around the room, it’s quite likely that the crown will move upward and be cut off by the ceiling. OR that it can move down, and that some of the manufacturer’s label will be exposed under the ceiling line. I’ve sent my comments to the company, in hopes that they will start printing to give us a little more play at the top of each strip. This pattern is called Brooklyn Toile , and is in the EZ Papes line of pre-pasted wallpaper by Flavor Paper . I like FP’s EZ Vapes a lot. But not their heavier vinyl, and definitely not their peel & stick material .
Hall leading to bedrooms and bathroom in 1936 bungalow with classic floor plan found in these age and style homes . No, the family doesn’t spend a lot of time in this tiny space , but the homeowner wanted to jazz it up. Here you go – funky , fun , and colorful ! Makes the space feel larger , too. The room has five doors , and the bold wallpaper really stands out against the white paint .Close up . The pattern is called Indienne and is by the House of Hackney . This installer – friendly non-woven material comes in one large roll that you cut apart into four panels or strips , and then hang in sequence . In the picture above, you see how the four panels look placed next to each other. The final width is about 6′ and the height is 10′ 4″. Most people have shorter walls , so the wallpaper can be trimmed to your ceiling height . Non-woven wallpapers can be hung by pasting the wall , but I usually prefer to paste the paper . They will strip off the wall easily and with no damage to your walls when you redecorate later . This company custom-prints your paper when you order . Here’s their instruction sheet . The printed instructions come in about 10 different languages , and the print is miniscule . But the diagrams are universal! The home is in the Eastwood neighborhood of Houston . installer
The homeowner bought this townhouse in central Houston 12 years ago and has always wanted to get rid of this really blah, ditsy small print in the commode room of her master bathroom . I know the design trend for the last several years has been white , grey , grayeige , minimalist , serene , clean , sparse ,,,, but there is nothing in this gal’s home that is remotely any of that … Her home is all about color , pattern , meaningful items prominently displayed – and lots of them! (Example: notice the fancy doorknob and the tassle hanging from it.) I really enjoyed working here, because that’s pretty much my decorating style , too.So here’s continuing that ” moody maximalism ” theme into the potty room. Note the cabinet and ceiling have been painted a coordinating color . Opposite corner . The room is REALLY tiny , and the door opens inward , so it was quite a bit of a challenge squeezing myself, my tools, and my ladder all in there. Close-up. The pattern is called Artemesia Absinthium , and is by Klaus Haapaniemi & Co in Finland . I don’t know who this Klaus guy is, and have never worked with his wallpaper before, but he must be half-high on psychedelics ,,, I would highly recommend a visit to his website and checking out the various fabric and wallpaper options . If you’re into maximalism and bold drama , that is! The material was a quite nice non-woven , and was easy to work with . I did stripe dark paint under where the seams would fall, in case of slight gaps showing the wall beneath . I was a little disappointed that there was some slight paneling / shading / difference in depth of color between some of the strips – but not too noticeable . Non-woven papers are designed to strip off the wall quickly and easily and with no / minimal damage to the wall when you redecorate . I do find it interesting that this pattern is so very similar in design and name to the very popular Artemis by House of Hackney , another good wallpaper manufacturer . Like I say, for every company making a cool pattern, there are others making their own versions / knock-offs .
Before. The adjoining walls have been painted a complimentary blue. The mom-to-be and I talked about whether or not to paper the sloped area. To me, since the sloped area goes up as high as the blue painted walls on either side, it looks more cohesive to run the paper up to the same height as the painted walls. Note that the sloped areas is a flat surface. The appearance of an upward bend on the right side is an optical illusion. The wall to the right is folding in, and is creating a false image. Horses done! The ceiling in this room was really off-level , and so you see some of the horses’ heads getting cut off as the eye moves to the right. The horses do run straight along under the sloped area, and along the top of the baseboard (not pictured). Close-up shows a linen – like appearance . Note that the seams on Spoonflower are intended to be overlapped, by about 1/2″. The ridges will be visible – more or less, depending on the angle the light is coming from. In the photo above, the sheen on the seam on the right is over-exaggerated due to light hitting it from the side. In real life, once the paste dries and the wallpaper shrinks tight to the wall, you won’t notice the overlaped areas. And one very good thing about overlapped seams – they are stronger, won’t shrink and gap and show white ate the seams , and put less stress on walls with unstable sub-surfaces . This material comes in panels 24″ wide x 12′ long / high. Don’t think that you can use every square inch of that strip. Here you can see that the mfgr cut off the horses’ heads at the top of the strip. So, if I want to place a particular horse at the top of the wall, I will have to roll out the paper and then cut off and discard parts of the pattern that I can’t use. This can be up to a full pattern repeat – which, in this case, was close to 1.5′. That’s 1.5′ wide x 2′ wide, which comes out to about 3 square feet of wallpaper that goes into the trash. Not a big deal. I factor all this in, and have my clients purchase enough paper to accommodate this. Just wanted to emphasize how you can’t plan to use every square inch of wallpaper, and to have the installer measure and calculate how much is needed before you purchase . The manufacturer is Spoonflower , who seems to be having a burst of exposure and popularity right now. They make a few types of wallpaper. I like this one very much, but do not like their other options. So, if you are considering Spoonflower , please buy their ” Prepasted Removable Smooth ” option. Do NOT get their ” Traditional Pebble ” or the ” Peel & Stick .” Both are extremely problematic , and may be short-lived on your walls.
OK, never mind the ’80’s-era toilet paper holder that’s recessed into the wall here and is not removable – which presents a challenge all its own. My issue is adding the next strip of wallpaper to the left, turning the corner, and keeping the pattern matched as well as possible in both the inside corner and around the outside corner. Usually, when turning inside corners, you wrap the paper around the corner 1/8 of an inch, and then cut a new strip of paper, match the pattern, and then overlap it that 1/8″ . That helps eliminate issues like mis-matches or wrinkles due to crooked corners or uneven / bowed / out-of-plumb walls . (no walls are ever perfect ) But in this case, we also have an outside corner to wrap. Even though it’s only about 2″ wide, that edge can cause the pattern to go off-plumb , or to create wrinkles in the wallpaper . Going against most rules of wallpapering , I’ve decided to wrap the next strip around this 2″ wide wall and then onto the wider wall to the left . Here I am, starting to position that next strip. I’m not going to try to wrap a full 27″ wide strip around this turn. Instead, I’ve trimmed it vertically along a horizontal stripe , which makes this strip narrower and more easy to handle , and also will help in placement of the next strip. Now I’m pushing it into place into that corner. Note how the paper is wrinkling, both on the wide wall, and as it comes around the 2″ wall. Another shot of the placement and wrinkles . Using my plastic squeegee smoother to press the paper tightly into the inside corner. Note that, since the corner isn’t perfectly straight or plumb, there were a few areas where I couldn’t press the paper tightly into the wall, but had to leave a bit of a gap or air bubble, in order for the left edge to wrap around the turn. The plastic smoother can also be used to gently push out wrinkles on the larger body of the strip of paper to the right. Don’t press too hard , nor overwork , because you don’t want to stretch the paper – that will cause more wrinkles. The plastic smoother took care of the inside corner. Here I’m using my damp microfiber cloth to tightly press the paper around this outside corner . OK. Paper’s wrapped tightly around this corner – but, because the corner isn’t straight , we’ve got wrinkles and warps . Sometimes, you need to take a scissors to make relief cuts to help ease the paper around the corner . Try to make your cuts along an element of the design , to make the slit less noticeable.here is that little narrow bit, finally wrapped around the outside corner. Now we need to add the next strip to the left of this. Note that this narrow strip isn’t straight nor plumb nor equidistant from the corner that we just turned. Nor is it equidistant from the next corner we have to deal with, which is to the left (not pictured). Since we want the wallpaper strips to match in the corners, it’s important that the wallpaper pattern fall in the corner to the left at the same point from ceiling to floor. Complicated to explain. So I’m taking a fresh strip of wallpaper , made sure the pattern matches correctly , and have trimmed it vertically along the tan stripe . Now placing it along this wrapped edge. Because I’m overlapping instead of butting , I’m able to pull the new strip to the right or left, to keep it equidistant from the right outside corner . Or, from the inside corner to the left. Actually, I don’t care much about the right side. The eye won’t notice if the new strip isn’t perfectly plumb . Nor will it notice if the pattern match isn’t 100% perfect . But it will notice if the pattern doesn’t match perfectly in the inside corner to the left. So I’m pulling and manipulating and overlapping the strip a bit, so that the left edge of it is exactly 10-3/4″ from the left edge. This ensures that the pattern motifs fall all at the same point into that corner on the left. Do I can cut my next strip, trim it vertically so the design matches with that in the corner, and get a perfect pattern match in the corner. Kinda difficult to explain, but I hope you can follow what I’m describing. Note that this overlap is causing a bit of a ridge under the paper . Hard to see here, but when the paper dries and shrinks tight against the wall, it will be a little more obvious. But I’d rather have a ridge on the right, than a pattern mis-match in the corner to the left. Oh, and never mind that little pattern mis-match to the right … that’s the paper wrapped around the corner, so you’re looking at different dimensions, not a pattern mis-match. Here is that strip finished. The vertical strips isn’t perfectly plumb, but no one can tell that. ut the pattern is perfectly straight in the inside corner to the left . So when I take my subsequent strip and trim it vertically to remove the right edge by approximately 10-3/4″ , the pattern should match perfectly in this inside corner. (It did!) This “sort of” Greek key trellis geometric design is by Thibaut , one of my favorite brands. It was on a triditional paper substrate , and was hung via the paste the paper method . It was purchased from my favortite source for wallpaper in Houston , Dorota Hartwig at the Sherwin-Williams in the Rice Village , who has more selection books than anywhere else in the city – and knows what’s in every one of them! Call before heading over (713) 529-6515 . The home is in the Champions Forest area of northwest Houston.
It’s nice when a manufacturer does this. Notice that all of the pattern motifs are contained within the width / borders of this strip of wallpaper. Nothing passes across the seam. There is nothing to match from strip to strip. Even if the walls are out of plumb , or the ceiling is not level , this allows me to keep the same design element at the same spot below the ceiling, all the way across the wall or around the room . See photo. All seven strips across this nursery accent wall have the design motifs at the same distance below the crown molding. Not having to connect a pattern motif to another across each seam means that I can pull each strip up to where I want it under the crown molding. No going off-track or sloping / tracking down or up. This cute pattern of pastel hot air balloons is by Caitlin Wilson and is in the Sure Strip line of pre-pasted , easy to install and easy to remove wallpaper s made by York . I like this material a lot.
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