Working Around Shading in Cork Wallpaper

The homeowners originally sought grasscloth for this accent wall in the home office. But I talked them out of it, due to the unpleasant shading and color variation issues (click on the page to the right to read more). I showed them a sample of this white-washed cork wallpaper, and they were immediately smitten.

The previous time I hung this, the material was very homogeneous in color.

But this time, it was immediately evident that there was a darker band running down the left half of the roll, and a lighter band along the right side. Note that this is not considered a defect (even though it is obviously a problem stemming from the factory). It is considered part of the “inherent beauty of these natural materials.” Meaning, you can’t return it and expect to get your money back.

Cutting strips as they come off the roll and hanging them next to each other will result in abrupt color differences between strips – as you see in the top photo. One way to minimize that is to hang every other strip upside down, so you are then putting the dark side next to it’s dark counterpart on the previously hung strip.

In this case, because the darker areas were so dark and wide, this would have resulted in the wall having a striped look. Not what the homeowners were shooting for.

The wall was exactly 12′ wide, and the material is 3′ wide, so we needed four strips to cover the width of the wall.

We had three double-roll bolts. Each 24′ long bolt will give you two 9′ strips. Thus we needed two double rolls to cover this wall. That left us with one bolt in excess.

That turned out to be a good thing – having extra paper. The color shading was bad in one bolt, noticeable in another bolt, and the third bolt was pretty homogeneous in color.

I rejected the bolt with the worst shading. Thank goodness the client ordered a little extra paper! The bolt with the second-worst shading, I discovered that if I rolled it backwards, the shading was less severe in the inner portion.

So I took two strips off this bolt from the inside-out.

So now that gave me two strips from the first roll that were pretty homogenous. Plus two strips from the second bolt that were passable.

How to keep the color as uniform a possible across the 12′ wide wall?

II knew I wanted to place the two strips from the first, “best” bolt in the center of the wall. If I hung one right-side-up, and the next one up-side-down, keeping the darker area toward the center, the color differences would be less noticeable.

But I still had to cover 3′ width on either side of those two center strips.

One strip equaled 3′ width. So one 3′ wide strip on either side of those two center strips.

One plan, I contemplated cutting each of those the two 3′ (36″) wide strips from the second bolt into 18″ widths. Hang one right-side-up and the other upside-down. That would break up any color variations into less noticeable panels.

Only problem was, then there would be two 36″ wide chunks of material in the middle, flanked by two 18″ wide chunks on either side. I thought that would be too inconsistant, visually.

It would look better to keep all the widths the same, at 36.”

The two strips I had taken off that second double roll bolt had some shading issues, with the left side being darker than the right side. I reasoned that it would be less noticeable if the darker, shaded area, was toward the outer corners – sort of as if sunlight or furniture or window shutters were casting shadows.

So I plotted to use a full 36″ wide strip on either side of the center strips. I would position them so that the lighter side of each strip was toward the center – toward those two originally-placed strips. This meant placing one right-side-up and the other one upside-down.

Thus the darker edge of the strips would be situated toward the corners of the wall – a logical place for shadows and light to play tricks on the eye.

That’s what I ended up doing. And the finished wall does really look very homogeneous!

Yes, I am quite guilty of over-thinking way more than I should. But I think the client deserves the best look possible. And, to be honest, all this plotting and engineering is a big part of the fun of hanging wallpaper!

Defects With York Wallpaper Today

Look closely at the top photo, and you will notice a very thin, light brown line down the left edge of the wallpaper. Lucky I noticed this before cutting or pasting any strips, because, if this had been hung on the wall, you would see a faint brown vertical stripe every 20.5″ around the room.

In the second photo, you will also notice a slight pattern mis-match.

Obviously, this paper was not trimmed correctly at the factory.

This is in the SureStrip line by York. It’s a shame, because this is one of my favorite brands and lines – but I’ve run into a number of printing defects with York papers recently.

‘Tis The Season – for Defects

This is the second time in a month that I have not been able to finish a job for a client, due to problems with the paper. In this case, it is not a defect in the paper itself, but rather, damage caused by improper storage – most likely at the vendor.

Look closely at the top photo and you will see slight light line along the far right edge. This is where ink has been pulled off the surface. There are also remnants of ink along the right edge of the backside of the wallpaper, as seen in the second and third photos.

What happened is, the bolts of wallpaper must have gotten a tad wet along one edge. Perhaps stored in a warehouse that had a water leak that accessed the wallpaper. Or the delivery guy spilled his Ozarka and a tiny splash found its way into the edge of the wallpaper.

Whatever happened, three of the five double roll bolts of paper were damaged.

What happened is, the wallpaper is pre-pasted, which means it has a thin layer of dry paste on the backside. When the spilled water reached the edge of the wallpaper bolt, it was absorbed, and the moisture re-activated the paste. The paste stuck the rolled-up layers of paper to themselves.

When I came along and started to unroll the wallpaper, the backside stuck to the printed front side, and pulled some of the ink off. Hence you see color missing from the surface, and color stuck to the back.

There is no way to know if this happened at the factory, or at one of the many middle-man vendors popping up on-line these days, or on the delivery guy’s truck.

This is a pretty minor flaw. Yet, once up on the wall, it would result in a faint, pale, vertical line from floor to ceiling, along each seam – every 27.”

I thought the homeowner deserved better, so I declined to hang it. She will have to reorder, making sure to get a different run number, which means the new paper will have been printed and shipped at a different time. Or, she may choose a whole different pattern altogether. Either way, it’s pretty sure that the new paper will not have encountered moisture that could cause this problem again.

The wallpaper is by Caitlin Wilson, and is made by York, in their SureStrip line – which is actually one of my favorite brands.

Printing Defect – Shading Issue

Look at the seam, which runs down the center of the page. It is clear that the right side of these strips of wallpaper is darker than the left side.

Unfortunately, this homeowner’s paper is not going up today. And she will have to wait for the company to use up its current stock, and then make a new production run. (Do a Search here on “run” to learn more.)

And then we have to hope that the new run does not have the same defect. Once the paper arrives, I will run by the store and check it, before the client picks it up.

This has to be a fluke, because York, and their SureStrip line, is one of my favorite brands.

Disappointing Flaw of the Day – Printing Defect

Whoa-ah! I was rolling out my very first strip of wallpaper for this master bathroom in the Rice Military neighborhood of Houston, and discovered this.

This err of the printing press meant the loss of almost an entire double roll bolt (33′). That is two and a half strips of wallpaper.

In addition, this wallpaper pattern had some additional printing faux. No pic, but there were some minor pattern mis-matches across the edges of the strips. This was a relatively busy pattern, so these were not all that crucial.

In other areas, a black “accent” line got shifted to the left, making it more of a shadow than an accent. Again, this was very difficult to detect, and didn’t grossly affect the look of the project.

From these, it was obvious that the printing press had gotten off-register, and was stamping certain colors about a quarter inch to the left.

As far as that swervy line in the photo, I have no idea what went wrong at the factory. But it rendered a significant amount of paper unusable.

Another reason to always buy at least one extra double roll bolt of paper.

Flaws of the Day – Smudges and Streaks

The smudges you see are ink from the manufacturer’s printing process. They appeared on both the right and left side of this strip of wallpaper.

It was just by chance that I saw this before I got it to the wall (because normally you’re looking at the back of the strip while you are pasting it).

There was another, faint, thumb-sized smudge on the outer 3″ of another strip. Even though it was faint, it would have stood out against this very plain background.

Again, lucky that I spotted it before pasting, and was able to save the strip by plotting to use it where the defect would be cut off by the door frame.

The manufacturer is Thibaut, one of my favorite wallpaper brands. Issues like this are rare with Thibaut.

A Few Small Issues With Schumacher Silk

Whoops! Someone at the factory got fingerprints on the wallpaper. 😦 Luckily, this was in the first foot or so of material, so I was able to cut it off and discard it without losing too much.

In the second photo, look just to the right of the pencil and you will see a band of darker colored material. Maybe the rollers at the factory pressed a little harder in this area – who knows?

This is part of the manufacturing process, and it’s part and parcel with natural materials like this silk. It is not considered a defect.

This silk was 36″ wide, and the strips I needed were 29″ wide. So I was able to trim off this darker band and use the part that was more homogeneous in color.

If I had needed the full 36″ widths, there would have been faint darker horizontal bands running the full height of each strip. Again, not a defect; just the nature of the beast.

The manufacturer is Schumacher.

Flaw of the Day – Creases and Krinkles

I don’t encounter nearly as many defects in wallpaper as I did even a few years ago. But today, and with one of my favorite brands, I ran into a few problems that cost us some paper.

These creases have actually damaged the surface of the paper, and will not flatten out as the paper dries. While they are relatively minor, they are noticeable enough that they would mar the look on the wall. When people have a nice home, and they’ve spent a lot of money on their decorating project, I think they should have everything as perfect as possible.

So I rejected all the areas that had these creases. That meant that we lost a couple of full-height strips. Good thing that I usually have my clients order a bit of extra paper. So there was enough to finish the power room.

Interestingly enough, this same defect popped up when I hung this same pattern a few months earlier. I am friends with the customer service rep for this manufacturer, and I reported these incidents to him; his company is very customer-oriented. I hope they are able to rectify this problem.

Defect – Another Reason to Buy a Little Extra Paper

You may have to enlarge the photo, but you can see some typed words running across this wallpaper’s face.

This ink was transferred from the instruction sheet that was rolled up inside the bolt of wallpaper.

To get around this defect and then find the correct pattern match, I had to throw away at least 2′ of the wallpaper.

This is not uncommon. Remember … it’s always good to buy extra paper, even as much as an extra double roll (bolt).

Flaw of the Day – Slight Groove

Hard to see, but if you look just ahead of the pencil point, you will notice a light groove running through this bolt of wallpaper. I set this bolt aside, to be used in areas up high, where the defect would not be noticeable. Luckily, it only ran a few feet through the bolt, so most of the paper was blemish-free.