What Does A Plumbing Repair Have To Do With Wallpaper?

Thursday, I hung grasscloth on three walls of this master bedroom, and left for the night. When I arrived on Friday to finish the last wall, the homeowner hustled me into the adjoining bathroom and showed me where a repair had been done to the toilet’s water intake line the previous night.

By freak accident, some decorative item had fallen off the toilet tank and hit the water intake pipe “just so.” The pipe was of plastic, and had a few weaknesses in it. So when it was struck in just the right (or wrong!) place, it broke – and spewed water everywhere!

Luckily, the homeowner was home and caught this immediately. And, luckily, there is a neighborhood “guy” in the Heights (Inner Loop neighborhood of Houston) who is able and willing to come out at any hour to fix things like this.

Fixing it has to do with accessing the plumbing pipes. And that has to do with cutting into the wall.

Eeeek!

The homeowner was freaking out, that the plumber might have to access the pipe from the other side of the wall – the wall that I had just hung her beautiful new $$ grasscloth wallpaper on!

A cut through the drywall here would have necessitated replacing the entire strip of wallpaper. And because of how grasscloth is trimmed to fit specific dimensions, and because of the color differences between bolts and strips, it would have looked better to have replaced all the strips on the wall.

Major hassle, major work involved, and it would have used up all our “extra” paper.

Luckily, the plumber was able to fix the pipe by cutting through from the bathroom side.

The homeowner still has to get someone to come repair the drywall and paint. But VERY lucky that no other repairs had to be done.

And SO lucky that the homeowner was on-site, and knew to cut off the water to the house. If the leak had run for an hour – not to mention overnight or over a weekend – much more would have been damaged… Not just my new wallpaper, but the hardwood floors, moldings, insulation, possibly drywall and possibly furniture, and more.

Farrow & Ball, Damaged Paper

While I’m griping about F&B, I’m including a photo of an 18″ long portion of one bolt that was severely damaged by the factory (another bolt had similar damage). This particular pattern was a sort of mural, with no repeating pattern that I could cut off and replace with more of the same pattern. In other words, I needed that 18″!

I ended up plotting the layout of the room so that this damaged left edge of the strip would end up cut off by the right side of a door frame.

Unwrapped Bolt – What’s Wrong With This Picture?

This is how the homeowner’s wallpaper arrived – no label, no wrapper, and with two fingerprints marring the first two feet of paper (upper edge, in both rectangles).

This is one of the problems with buying wallpaper off the Internet. This came from a site that sells clothing, jewelry, shoes, and – oh yeah … home accessories, too.

The price may be very cheap.

But you have no idea what you are getting. For instance, this company’s website give virtually no information, other than the dimensions of the bolt, the color, and that it’s printed with water-based ink on “quality wallpaper.” I guess that to an unschooled homeowner, that sounds good. But to a paperhanger, that provided virtually no useable information.

But what’s worse is that many of these outlet type websites are buying up and reselling discontinued, damaged, or returned goods from other sources. That’s why this paper has no wrapper or label. There is no way to know the run number of the bolts she has – so they may well be slightly different shades, which will be unacceptable on her wall.

These companies don’t have a salesperson who is knowledgeable about wallpaper. They have an order-taker, and a guy in the warehouse who runs and grabs some rolls off the shelf, paying no attention to run numbers or condition of the rolls.

I’ve hung this paper before, and know that it’s made by an established manufacturer (as opposed to a “boutique” company with some paper and a digital printer and dubious quality). Even though it would cost a bit more, it would be much preferable to buy wallpaper from the manufacturer itself, or, better, from a local retail store (not a box store) specializing in and knowledgeable about wallpaper.

You’ll have someone who can help you with accurate measurements, the various types of substrates, run numbers, double and single rolls, availability (discontinued patterns), shipping times, and who can easily straighten out any problems if they should occur.

For my recommendations on where to buy wallpaper, see the page at right “Where to Buy Wallpaper In Houston.”

Skulls, Brains, or Leopards?

From a distance, do you see skulls? The homeowner’s daughter says this pattern looks like brains. But move closer, and you will see the real design motif – leopards! They are cleverly intertwined into a trellis pattern. I love the fool-the-eye effect!

I hung this in a powder room in a home in Bellaire (Houston) that was damaged by flooding from Hurricane Harvey. (I hung the original paper when the family bought the home in 1992.) The family has moved back into their home, and using something quirky and fun in the powder room has added a lot of personality to the newly finished space.

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.

Color Difference Due To Fading Over The Years

I hung this original paper more than 15 years ago. Some areas had become stained, so I was called to fix it. Luckily, the homeowner had saved the left over paper, so there was enough to replace the damaged strips.

You can see a slight difference in color between the strip on the left, which was hung 15 years ago and has been exposed to light all that time, and the strip on the right, which has been stored in a dark closet until I put it up today.

Soring Birds Day Dream in a Baby’s Nursery

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What a well-loved pattern for babies’ rooms! This soon-to-be-with-us baby in a Spring Branch (Houston) home has a lovely new nursery. I have hung this many times, but this is the first time in this colorway.

The pattern is called “Day Dream” and is by Hygge & West, an on-line company. It comes in many colors, and fits into many rooms or themes.

The second photo shows me about to hang the first strip, having plotted the layout so the bird will fall down the center of the wall, and using my laser level (the red line on the wall) to keep the paper plumb.

Hygge & West papers can be challenging to hang. The seams curl and the paper waffles. The second-to-last photo shows the slight curling at the seams where ink falls on the seams, which is common to their paper. However, this time, I had much less difficulty with the paper in general….It laid flat without waffling or wrinkling, and there was very little curling at the seams. I hope that this means that the H & W team has listened to us out here in the field, and has started to use a better substrate and ink formula.

Still, they could use some help in packaging their merchandise for shipping – the final photo shows damaged ends of rolls of paper, due to being banged about during shipping. Unfortunately, all of the rolls were banged up, and the damage went deep into each bolt – meaning that I couldn’t cut around and discard the damaged areas. Since this pattern has a lot of open space, there isn’t much pattern to disguise these bashed areas, so they are going to show on the wall.

Beautifully Packaged Wallpaper

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One of my big rants is about wallpaper that has banged up edges, due to being bashed about during shipping. “All the manufacturer has to do is add a little bubble wrap,” I say. Some companies use thin cardboard “collars” around the ends of the bolts – but these end up being too tight and crimping the wallpaper, which creates dents and scars.

Well, this manufacturer went a mile beyond, and came up with a way to keep the bolts of paper free from any shipping damage.

Each roll of wallpaper is encased in a plastic sleeve. At either end of each roll is a “puck” made of corrugated cardboard (not visible in the photo), custom-cut to fit the diameter of the bolt, and with a tab in the center that pokes into the center of the bolt of rolled up wallpaper, ensuring that it stays in place. All inside that plastic sleeve.

Then each of those bundles is placed inside a custom-tailored-to-fit box made of cushioned corrugated cardboard; one double roll of wallpaper to a box.

Then all of those boxes were placed inside a large shipping box, also made of cushy corrugated cardboard.

This is by far the best thought-out and most-effective protective wrapping I have ever seen. Every single bolt of wallpaper arrived in perfect condition.

The product line is A-Street Prints, and the manufacturer is Brewster.