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.

Repairing Water Stains from Flooding During Hurricane Harvey

This home in Bellaire (Houston) received damage from flooding during Hurricane Harvey in August 2017. Water stains appeared on a small area of the wallpaper just above the baseboard in this powder room. Luckily, the homeowners had saved the paper left over from the original install, so I had material to use for the repair.

Certain substances, like grease, blood, smoke, rust, ink, tobacco, and water stains will bleed through wallpaper (and also paint and other materials, too). To prevent this, the discolorations must be treated with a stain-blocking sealer. Many of these are shellac-based, such as BIN, made by Zinsser, but there are others. I prefer oil-based KILZ Original (2nd photo).

I could have just cut some wallpaper and slapped it on top of the stain. But I wanted to be sure these flood survivors wouldn’t have to look at water stains again. So I used KILZ to cover the stains (3rd photo).

The next week, I came back to do the patch. Using my self-healing craft cutting mat with angles and measurements to trim on, along with a straightedge and razor blade, I cut appliqués to paste on top of the stained paper.

It wasn’t quite as simple as it sounds, because the wallpaper had to be hand-trimmed (use a razor blade to trim off the unprinted selvedge edge). And pasting the paper causes it to absorb moisture and expand, which can throw off the pattern match. So I was dealing with factors relative to what the other guy did and the products he used, compared to my own techniques and products / paste.

It took two tries, but with careful trimming and a little touch-up paint, the job turned out great (last photo).

I also used paint to cover some stains at the top of the baseboard, and also re-pasted some loose areas in other parts of the room (no picture).

Repairing Damage from Hurricane Harvey

This home in the Champions Forest area of north Houston received flood damage after Hurricane Harvey. The bottom 2′ or so of drywall had been cut out and replaced by the restoration contractor. The only thing is, the new drywall was recessed back about 3/8″ from the existing drywall. Even though this was near the floor in the niche behind the refrigerator, the homeowner didn’t want to have a difference in wall height, nor a mis-match in the wallpaper pattern.

So I used joint compound (“mud”) and drywall seam tape to bridge the gap and to float out the discrepancy. It took three coats, and several sandings, plus a sealing primer, but the finished wall is pretty even and smooth. (2nd photo)

There wasn’t enough left over paper to replace the whole alcove, so I used scraps to piece in the bottom area. Rather than make a straight horizontal cut 2′ above the floor, it’s less eye-catching to have the patched areas run along a feature of the design, such as the vines and branches in this pattern. (3rd photo)

Once the new strips were smoothed into place (4th and 5th photos), the patched areas are virtually undetectable.

Sometimes people complain about having left over wallpaper. But here’s a good example of why you should. (last photo) This homeowner had kept all her leftovers in their original wrappings and in their original box, in a climate-controlled environment (not the garage or attic), and she had what was needed to make this repair (and several others around the room that are not shown here).

A/C Guy Trashes My Hardwood Floor

I am extremely upset. I had my A/C guy come yesterday to enlarge an air return. They did not bother to put down drop cloths, so we had three 200-lb guys wearing their heavy work boots, stomping and swiveling their feet on my beautiful pine floor, while they climbed up and down the folding attic ladder, for over four hours on Monday.

Look what they did to my floor! The scratches are worse in person than they look in the photos. Some of the scratches are literally 1/8″ deep.

And… two years ago, one of his helpers got banned from my house because he did not protect my antique bookcase from the hinges on the folding stairs as I asked him to, and he put this huge gouge into the wood (last photo).

You’d think that, after damaging a client’s furniture two years ago, they would learn from that and take precautions to protect furniture and floors in the future. As we can see, they clearly did not get the message. Or, I guess they just didn’t give a shit.

I cut these boards, routed the edges, laid them myself, filled nail holes, sanded, stained, and poly-ed, and they were beautiful for 20 years. One afternoon of some clods not bothering to put down a $5 drop cloth and my floor is trashed. Fixing this will require stripping the finish, sanding it all smooth, re-staining, and re-polyurethaning. Which we all know will never get done, because I never have any free time, and when I do, it’s always taken up by other more pressing things (like laundry, or going to the paperhangers’ convention).

This is not something that can be cleanded or filled with a wax stick. It is permanent damage. So pissed.

Thanks for listening to the rant. I just don’t understand being so inconsiderate in someone else’s home. When I am in a client’s home, I am always thinking about protecting surfaces, where my feet are going, preventing splatters from primer, not knocking into furniture or walls, etc. It’s these “bubba type” workmen who just plow through their task, focused on the end result, but never paying attention to the process, or the collateral damage they may be causing. Oh, and they still get their big paycheck when they’re finished.

So pissed!!

1950’s Bathroom Revisited – and Updated

This hall bathroom in a 1955 home in the Briargrove / Tanglewood neighborhood of Houston suffered damaged during Hurricane Harvey. The wallpaper had to be replaced. The homeowner chose the aqua trellis paper, thinking it would compliment the original sea-foam colored tile (which I happen to love, BTW). The contractor let his painter hang the new wallpaper. Both these decisions turned out to be mistakes.

I was called in to remove the trellis paper, prep and prime the walls, and then hang this beautiful and bold paisley pattern. Some of the photos are washed out, but in the good ones you can see the rich hues of this fun pattern. And it coordinates perfectly with the tile.

This wallpaper pattern is by Thibaut Designs, and was bought at below retail price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. She is great at helping you find just the perfect paper! Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.

Cole & Son “Woods” in Bellaire Powder Room

This family’s home in Bellaire had been damaged by flooding during Hurricane Harvey in August of 2017. Four months later, much of the home has been fixed, but the house is still not livable yet and there is still much work to be done. The mom and dad are both at the point where they want just one room done, one room that is pretty, and a little normalcy back in their lives.

I, personally, think they are rushing things a bit (because I like wallpaper to be the very last element done in a home), but the wife assured me she would make sure that other contractors (painters, floor guys, plumbers, electricians, etc., would not damage the wallpaper.

The mom originally planned to have the powder room painted. She was at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet to look at paint samples, and happened to glimpse a sample of this wallpaper pattern. “Woods” by Cole & Son is a popular pattern (I have hung it many times – do a search for previous posts), and it pulled her in immediately.

The powder room is large, and “Woods” was a wonderful choice for it. It fills the wall space nicely, and adds a lot of upward movement. It also adds an element of contemporary style, which the homeowner wanted to add to her previously-traditional styled home.

This wallpaper pattern is by Cole & Son, a British company. It is a non-woven material and uses a paste-the-wall install technique (rather than paste-the-paper). It was bought at below retail price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. She is great at helping you find just the perfect paper! Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.

Good Reasons NOT To Let The Handyman Hang Your Wallpaper

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“He was good at everything else he did,” said the homeowner. “Painting, drywall, and everything else. He just had never encountered un-prepasted wallpaper before.”

Pre-pasted or hand-pasted material has little to do with it … this poor fellow’s skillset didn’t cover basics like matching the pattern, wrapping corners, butting seams, trimming neatly along the edges, patching over a mistake, removing the old wallpaper, properly prepping the walls, or using an appropriate adhesive (he made a mad dash to a local box store… Sherwin-Williams or Southwestern Paint would have been better).

He also failed to remove the existing wallpaper. I am sure that that paper could have been stripped off, with proper knowledge and a little time. Then the walls should have been primed – another step he skipped.

In addition, there is a gummy residue that feels something like rubber cement left along the top of the tile. This will be pretty difficult to remove, and any product that can dissolve it will probably stain the wallpaper.

And this rubbery-feeling gunk makes me fear that this wallpaper will be very difficult to get off the wall. There are some versions of “wallpaper primer” that result in a tacky surface that is great for grabbing ahold of wallpaper – but NOT for letting it go when it’s time to change décor.

The bottom line for these homeowners…. They paid this guy to put up their wallpaper, and will now have to pay me to fight to get it off the wall, fix any damage to the wall surface, subjugate the problematic adhesive residue, re-prep and reprime the wall, and then rehang the new paper.

The last photo is from a different house, but shares some of the same problems, most particularly improper wall prep.