Dwunk Cwitters – Dark Seams

Re my previous post , it’s very common for wallpaper to shrink just a tad when the paste dries, and this can leave you with teeny gaps at the seams. So when hanging a dark paper like this, I like to stripe a band of black paint under where the seams will fall. This way, if the paper does gap at the seams, you will see dark, and not the white wallpaper primer .

I measure and plot where each seam will fall and then run a stripe of diluted water-based craft paint (from Michael’s or Texas Art Supply) under where the seam will be. I wet a scrap of sponge and dip it in the paint, adding water as needed. Don’t make it too thick or dark. Because you want the wallpaper adhering to the wallpaper primer underneath all this.
On top of the wallpaper primer, the craft paint dries pretty quickly. But I use a heat gun to be sure the paint is good and dry before hanging each strip.
Don’t paint more than one or two stripes at a time, because wallpaper stretches and expands when it gets wet with paste , and it’s difficult to predict exactly where each seam will fall. For the same reason, be sure your stripes are at least 1/2″ wide, if not a full inch.
Additionally, I’ll take a pastel chalk (NOT an oil pastel – oil stains wallpaper) and run it from the backside along the white edges of the wallpaper, to prevent any white edges from showing at the seams. Do a Search here to see previous posts about that trick .

Sweet Baby’s Room in Polka Dots

The parents-to-be have chosen not to know the gender of their coming baby. This cream-on-taupe polka dot is calming and sweet, and it will work for either boy or girl.

In the second photo, note that the seams are dark. This is a prepasted wallpaper, meaning that there is powdered paste on the back, and all you have to do is wet it to activate the paste. The water can also find its way inbetween the top, colored layer of wallpaper and the paper backing, which causes the discoloration at the seams. Don’t worry – it dries and looks just fine. In the third photo, you see a dark, wet seam on the right, and most of the seam on the left has dried and is invisible.

The last photo show a small dot that was some tiny thing imbedded in the wallpaper. If it were up high, I probably would have let it go. But it was just about eye-level, and I thought it would be too noticeable, so I ripped that strip off the wall, cut a new one, and hung it. I’m glad I did; the baby deserves a perfect room.

I liked working with this paper. Another nice thing about it is that the dots did not cross the seams. This eliminated the need to match a pattern from strip to strip (although I still had to keep the dots in their right sequence). But more important, I was able to pull the dots right up to the top of the wall on every strip. You see, walls and ceilings and floors and, yes, even wallpaper, are never 100% absolutely true to plumb. That means that the dots could start looking like they are walking up or down hill, or could get cut off diagonally at the corners. Just look at my previous post about the crooked walls and the striped wallpaper. But since I didn’t have to match a pattern at the seams, I was free to position each strip where I wanted, and thus was able to place all the dots exactly at the top of the wall. I wish more manufacturers were mindful of this.

This nursery was in a newish townhome in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston. The wallpaper pattern is by York, and was bought at a discounted price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her