Cardboard Protects Edges of Wallpaper from Being Crushed

Some wallpapers are more delicate than others, and can be damaged during shipping. Some manufacturers have started using these cardboard caps to protect against getting banged up.

Replacing Countertop Leaves Damage to be Repaired

The vanity top was replaced. The new backsplash is a tad shorter than the previous one, so there is a gap above it. In addition, the original caulk is sticking out from the wall. The new wallpaper cannot go over this, because it will not sit tightly to the backsplash or wall.
After stripping off the wallpaper, I used a razor knife to remove the caulk – which is harder than it sounds, because that stuff is sticky! Then I sealed the torn drywall areas with Gardz (do a Search here to learn more about that product). Once that was dry, I used joint compound to fill in the gap between the backsplash and wall. Once that was dry, I sanded smooth and sealed again with Gardz.
Silly me forgot to take an “after” photo.

Fixing Drywall Damage From Where Vanity Was Removed

The powder room in this 1990’s home in the Houston Heights is being updated, and that means replacing the wall-to-wall vanity. Here the vanity has been ripped out. The areas where the backsplash was adhered to the wall have pulled the top surface of the drywall off. In addition, the plumber had to cut out a section of drywall in order to gain access to the pipes, so he can install the new faucet and handles. You can see the connections roughed in.

You can’t hang wallpaper over this mess. First of all, it way too uneven – all those bumps will show under the new wallpaper. And the outline of the ” trapdoor ” will leave a big square ridge under the paper. Thankfully, the plumber secured the panel with drywall screws – most plumbers just leave you with a chunk of drywall floating in space, or even just an empty hole.
Back to patching issues … in addition, the torn areas of drywall will absorb moisture from the wallpaper primer and / or paste and expand, creating bubbles that will show under the new paper.
I needed to fill in dips and gouges, even out high areas, and prevent bubbling drywall.

Gardz by Zinsser to the rescue! This is a penetrating sealer that soaks into porous surfaces and then dries hard, binding them together and creating a stable surface, as well as resisting moisture from water-based top coatings.

This picture doesn’t look much different, but here the torn drywall is a little darker, indicating that the Gardz has soaked in and dried. The surface is now ready for a skim-coat.
But first, the trap door needs to be addressed. I covered the cut areas with four strips of self-adhesive mesh drywall tape (no photo).
Then I went over everything (wall to wall) with joint compound (commonly referred to as mud ) (no photo).
Because of the thickness of the high and low areas, this had to be a thick coat of smoothing compound, and would take a long time to dry. So I went to the jobsite two days ahead of our install date, to do these initial repairs.
And – no – you can’t use quick set or hot mud or 5 or 20 minute mud to do these repairs. These products are intended for repairs of small areas. Top coatings like primers, paint, and wallpaper paste do not stick well to them. Don’t let a contractor sweet-talk you into letting him use any of these to smooth a large area of wall.

Here is the wall after my first, heavy, coat of smoothing compound. I use Sheetrock brand’s Plus 3.

The bubbles you see just left of center show that Gardz didn’t 100% do its job of sealing out moisture, as a little expansion and blistering has occurred. Not a biggie. These will disappear when the surface is sanded. There is usually not a problem with these re-appearing.

When I got to work two days later, the smoothing compound had dried. I sanded pretty smooth. Then vacuumed up the dust on the floor, and then used a damp sponge to wipe residual dust off the wall. This is important, because no coating will stick to dust.
The wall still wasn’t perfectly smooth, so I did another skim-coat. This was much thinner, so didn’t need a lot of time to dry. I used a fan and my heat gun to speed things along.
Once that was dry, I sanded it smooth, vacuumed and then wiped off all dust. Then rolled on my favorite wallpaper primer Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime. I have the paint store (Murphy Brothers in central Houston) add a little blue tint, so I can see it when I apply it to the wall.
What a transformation! Now this wall is ready for wallpaper!

Mixed Up Order

Somebody in the warehouse screwed up – grabbed the right color, but the wrong pattern!

Hmmm. I sure thought that the Pre-Install Check List I send around a week or so before a job starts requests that the homeowner check the wallpaper for 1.) proper number of rolls 2.) all the same run 3.) no damage from shipping 4.) correct pattern

Damage to Wall from Double Cut, Pt II – Repairing

Here the wallpaper has been removed. You can see I’ve placed drywall mesh tape over the cut area.

This a picture of the left side of the window, where I am repairing the same type of cut in the wall. Here I have applied drywall joint compound over the mesh tape. Once that dries, I will sand it smooth, wipe off the dust, and roll on a wallpaper primer. This should keep the crack from opening up further, prevent the wallpaper from coming open at the seam, and sanding everything smooth will keep bumps or ridges from showing through the paper. (Sorry for the dark photo – I don’t know what’s going on there…)

Here’s a photo of the patched area, dried, sanded smooth, and ready for primer.

Silvery Geometric Trellis on Living Room Wall

This wall was originally papered in a similar but more rigid pattern. Here the paper has been stripped and the walls primed.

Pattern is nicely centered. Hanging just this one wall took me about six hours. Note the unlevel floor line. Ditto the ceiling. This makes geometric patterns particularly challenging. You’ve just got to accept some imperfections.

In the Anna French line by Thibaut. Nice material.

The February 2021 freeze caused burst pipes, and that meant a whole lot of damage to this home in the Timbergrove (Heights) area of Houston. Once the contractor was done fixing the wall, I came in to replace the wallpaper.

This was a non-woven product. On a single accent wall, I will often paste the wall. But with all these turns, pasting the paper was a better option, because it renders the material more pliable, and also grabs the wall more quickly and tightly.

Damage From The Freeze – Repair Requests Starting To Come In.

The record-setting freeze that hit Texas in mid-February 2021 caused a lot of damage over multiple fronts.

In homes, a lot of this was due to water pipes that froze and burst, flooding floors or raining water down from walls and ceilings.

For a couple of weeks now, I’ve been getting calls for repairs to wallpaper.

Some homes “just” have water stains. But many homes have had to have drywall cut out, flooring pulled up, studs and outer wall brick exposed. Today I looked at a home where the entire first floor had been affected – all the kitchen cabinets, appliances, and backsplashes had been yanked out and trashed, all flooring gone, drywall cut out up to 18″ – nothing but studs and a raw concrete floor.

Even though the damage was on the lower 1/3 – 2/3 of the walls, to make the room look right, ALL the wallpaper has to be stripped off and replaced.

The kicker is, I had just hung their wallpaper back in October.

Repairs are hard to do, and hard to make look “as good as new.”

Even harder is that insurance companies always have a vastly different idea of what it costs for materials and labor, compared to actual real life prices, to get these people’s homes back to being livable again.

Avoid Damaging the New Wallpaper – Have All Work Done BEFORE the Paper Goes Up

See those dark smudges and scrapes on the wall, on both sides of the corner? The homeowner had crown molding installed, and this resulted in damage to the walls.

Either scraping while manipulating the wood into place, or the carpenter letting his sweaty hands touch the walls, or maybe leaning against the wall with his keychain rubbing on it.

So, best to have work like this done before the new wallpaper goes up.

Navy & White Schumacher – Finishing Touch to a Harvey Flooded Home

Still not completely finished fixing major damage caused by the devastating flood of 2017, this young couple in the Pearland area of Houston has done virtually all the repairs themselves – and done a mighty fine job of it, too…. Way better than most of the work done by “professionals” that I have seen in “Harvey homes.”

With many details still unfinished, the homeowners wanted just one room that would be done. The lady of the house loves this navy and white fauna/botanical print by Schumacher. She envisioned it on just the back wall of the powder room – the room that everyone sees when walking through the first floor.

You get two strips of paper out of one double-roll bolt, and the wall was 2.5″ wider than two strips of paper. Since Schumacher is expensive, the homeowners decided not to buy another bolt of paper to cover those 2.5 inches, but instead to “float” two strips of paper in the middle of the wall, and then use their DIY skills to build a frame around it.

The frame will be painted a very dark blue. I hate to fall back on the overused term “pop,” but that is exactly what the blue frame will do … It will make the wallpaper pop against the white walls, and also stand out from other design features in the home.

Scroll back a few days and you will see my encounters with a very difficult navy and white paper, also by Schumacher. This one was totally different.

The bird design I worked with today was printed with good quality inks on a non-woven substrate. N-W’s have a degree of fiberglass in their content, and thus are “dimensionally stable.” Among other positive features, they do not expand, and thus you have no wrinkling or waffling or puckers.

This paper went up very nicely.

Although, in two of the photos, true to reputation, you can see printing defects. Just par for the course, if you buy a Schumacher product

When the homeowner saw the finished job, she almost broke down into tears – one room finally complete and pretty and all reminders of the flood gone.

It was an honor to help this couple get to this one small milestone.

Sloppy, Lazy Painters

Here we are in the master bathroom of a brand newly built home in the Oak Forest neighborhood of Houston.

Before I put the charcoal-colored wallpaper up, this wall was originally painted white. Somewhere along the line, after the wall light sconces were put up, the painters came to add paint to the wall.

They didn’t bother to remove the sconces, or even to put protective blue painter’s tape around the metal base of the sconces. They also were not able to “cut a neat line” with their brush.

Consequentially, as you can see, they got paint slopped onto the bases of all four of these new-and-expensive light fixtures. Not shown, but the glass shades of the fixtures were dotted with scores of paint drips and splatters.

None of this was very noticeable while the wall was painted black. But now that the new dark wallpaper is in place, it’s very easy to see the white paint slopped around the light fixtures.

I hope the homeowners can live with the ring of white paint on the bases of their light sconces. If not, I’m just betting that any attempt made by these guys to clean or remove the paint from the light fixtures will result in damage to the new wallpaper.