Here before hanging wallpaper, I have removed the light fixture over the bathroom vanity . Some of the wall paint was stuck to the base of the light fixture, so was torn away from the wall when the fixture pulled away. In the photo, the cream colored area is the current semi-gloss paint , and the greyish area is the paint that is beneath it. Problem is, wall coatings surfaces should adhere to each other. In other words, the cream colored paint should not have peeled away from the grey paint under it. Usually this happens because proper prep was not done before the new layer of paint was applied. Surface coatings (meaning paint or wallpaper ) won’t stick to glossy surfaces, nor to dusty surfaces. So, if you’re painting over gloss paint, first a deglosser needs to be used, or a bonding primer . A good paint store guy ( Sherwin-Williams ) can advise you. If the original surface has dust , as from sanding or construction , this needs to be wiped off with a damp sponge , and that has to be rinsed clean frequently. Often a primer should follow that. Again, consult a knowledgeable paint guy. All of this is not so desperately important if you’re going to apply paint. Even on an unstable surface , paint simply dries and sits there. It only peels away if tension or pressure is put on it, such as removing the light fixture in the photo above. But wallpaper is different. Because wallpaper shrinks when the paste dries , tension is put on the seams . If the surface below is unstable , this tension can cause the surfaces below to come apart / delaminate . This can result in seams that pull away from the wall. This is not the wallpaper pulling away . This is the layers underneath that have actually come apart from each other. And it usually cannot simply be ‘ glued back down .’ You can do a search here to read previous blog posts about this issue.
Dribbling faucet … Whoops! Construction workers down the road cut into a water line. We are without fresh water! Can’t keep wallpaper clean during my install. The homeowner filled two food storage containers with what we could drain from the faucets in the house, and I got my half-full gallon of drinking water from the van. Used sparingly, I got through until they got the line fixed a few hours later. Whew!
Here I’m preparing to hang wallpaper on new drywall in a new addition to a 1930’s home in east Houston . First I’ve used a damp sponge to remove all construction and sanding dust. Next I’m going to apply my primer. It’s important to note that, even though this is wall is a new sheet of drywall, it’s not all the same surface. We have mostly large expanses of drywall / greenrock (the type of drywall that’s used in wet areas ). But at the joints , and covering where the screws and nails hold the drywall to the studs , we have joint compound . That’s the strips of white areas. And next to the crown and door molding and the baseboards is overspray from the paint that was applied to the wood trim. Here I’ve applied my light blue-tinted wallpaper primer over the top 1/3 of the wall. It’s important to be sure that the primer you use is suited for use under wallpaper . But also that it will properly adhere to and seal all the surfaces on the wall . My primer (below) will stick to just about anything. But this photo is interesting. Because my primer has been rolled on evenly across the wall , and cut in with a trim brush along the trim and corners . But you see that the primer is drying at different rates . On the right side of the photo, the primer is applied over the bare drywall, and it’s drying quickly. But toward the left, next to the door trim , the primer is drying more slowly. This is because there is paint overspray next to the door trim . The paint is semi-gloss enamel , and my wallpaper primer reacts with it differently from how it reacts to flat paint or drywall or other surfaces. Not a big deal. Just be aware of the need for different dry times due to different surfaces the primer is applied to. My preferred wallpaper primer is by Roman , called Pro 977 Ultra Prime. It’s not readily available, but you can find it on-line. All Sherwin-Williams stores can get it from the distribution center – but not all store managers know that, or are willing to do so. I get mine from Murphy Brothers Paint on Bissonnet near the Rice Village , who stocks it just for me.
What’s great about this picture? The powder room door is opening OUTWARD! Folks, it’s hard enough to hang wallpaper in a powder room, most of which are pretty small and cramped. Add a toilet, sink, ladder, tools, and a moving human body. Compounding all that, most powder room doors swing open inward (it’s a construction / architectural thing – Google it). That door takes up a lot of space inside the bathroom. This makes for a real juggling act and choreographed dance every time I need to get in or out of the room – which is frequently during the workday, since my pasting table is outside the room and the paper has to go onto the walls inside the room. On this job I was delighted that the door opened out. This made it infinitely easier to maneuver around in there and do the tasks necessary to get the room papered. Thank you builder!
I’m not sure exactly what this effect is called, but I see it now and then in modern styled homes. It’s a 3/8″ or so gap between the baseboard and the drywall up above. The idea is to make the wall look like it’s floating.
When I hung wallpaper in this bathroom, instead of trimming the excess at the bottom against the baseboard, I wielded a single-edge razor blade (near the bottom left in the photo) and trimmed it at the bottom of the “floating” drywall, leaving a tiny gap, which creates a sort of shadow line when viewed from above.
The previous wallpapers I’ve hung by Katie Kime have been on a non-woven substrate, a dependable synthetic material that has many positives going for it – light weight, breathable, stain-resistant, strips off the wall easily when redecorating, doesn’t expand when wet with paste so you can paste the wall as an alternative to pasting the paper, doesn’t expand so you can hang pasted strips immediately (no booking time), and your measurements will be accurate.
So I was surprised today by the weight of this material. And I could tell immediately that it was not their usual non-woven material.
Through a 20-minute Chat with their Customer Service (which is excellent, by the way), they told me that, due to the construction supply shortages related to the COVID pandemic, they are currently unable to get their usual materials, os have temporarily switched to a vinyl.
The backing looks like non-woven to me, but their instructions say to paste the paper and then book for 10 minutes, like a traditional paper. I suspect these instructions are outdated, but I followed them anyway.
This stuff was very thick and stiff … like working with a sheet of plastic. It was hard to press tightly into corners and to get tight cuts at ceiling and floor. I had to push really hard with a brand new blade to even slice through it.
I even had to use the heat gun to “melt” the material a bit so it would fit into and around inside and outside corners. This stuff would be the dickens to hang in a room with intricate cuts and turns.
Road construction and closures go on in Houston all over and all the time. Always an extreme annoyance. But sometimes they are downright insurmountable.
I do consultations and site inspections on Sunday afternoons. To prevent mucking up M-F workday traffic, much of the road and highway work gets pushed to the weekend. This means that some arteries will be partially or even completely shut down.
Driving down Hwy 288 on a weekday is bad enough. Narrow lanes, broken pavement, confusing signs, unmarked exits.
But this past Sunday, I was trying to get down to Manvel to visit a client. I won’t even try to describe the messes on I-45 and Beltway 8, or confess to how many exits I missed and had to U-turn. But it was at least doable.
But when I finally got to the intersection with Hwy 288, which leads straight to my destination, I found that the traffic was at a dead standstill. No way I could head south.
It’s rare that I back out of an appointment. But, after an hour sitting at this same highway exchange, I gave up and called the client and told her that I simply could not get there.
This story includes a whole lot more wasted time, frustration, and boiling-point temperament – all of which I will bypass.
The point is, sometimes I’m not able to help a client simply because it’s impossible to get to her house!
When people first contact me, I send them an “info pack” that explains the wallpaper process and how I work. It has a lot of helpful and important information.
One point is my time frame. I am usually booked up 2-3 months, so most likely I will not be able to help homeowners who want to have their wallpaper up quickly.
Another is that I don’t work on construction sites, but prefer to install the wallpaper after all the building is over and the other workmen are done and gone.
There’s a sentence advising people that I work in private residences only – no businesses or commercial settings.
I also don’t work in mid- or high-rise buildings, or many other multi-unit complexes like apartments or condos. Townhome compounds with shared driveways can be difficult, too. It has to do with multiple trips back and forth to the truck, and with hauling 50 pound buckets of paste along with bulky equipment like my 7′ long pasting table, and not blocking the neighbors access to their garages.
If people would read the information I send them, they can often discern early in the game if their situation is one that I am a good match for.
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