“Les Touches” Dots for 5-Year Old Girl’s Bedroom

Primed and ready

Pattern nicely centered on this focal wall

Close up

“Les Touches” (touch/dots/blots) is a decades-loved pattern by Brunschwig & Fils, a French company.

It has movement, but, having only two soft colors, is subdued. Thus it works nicely on one accent wall. Or, as in this young girl’s bedroom, on all the walls.

I hung this wallpaper in the Tanglewood / Galleria neighborhood of Houston.

Note that the hour-glass striped pattern is hard to see if you are only looking at a strip of wallpaper on your table. Before hanging, it is important to look up the pattern on-line or in a selection book, to see what the overall design and secondary pattern will look like when played out across a wide wall.

Swirls in Black on White in Master Bath Water Closet

Just about everything in this townhome is white. The master bath has white walls and woodwork, white cabinets and countertops, a white tub, and a white marble floor with wisps of soft grey.

This wallpaper continues the crisp clean look, but adds some contrast, dimension, and movement. In addition, the swirls are composed of dots about the size of a pencil eraser, and they are slightly raised, so the wallpaper actually has a bit of texture to it.

The wallpaper is on a non-woven substrate. With the characteristics of this material, you have the option of pasting the wall instead of the paper. But since bathrooms have more complicated spaces and access, it’s preferable to me to paste the paper.

This wallpaper pattern is by Designer Wallpapers, and was bought from my favorite source for good quality, product knowledge, expert service, and competitive price – 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.

The home is in the Rice Village / West University Place area of Houston.

Sticky Dots

This grasscloth wallpaper by Thibaut is called Union Square. It has not just the texture from the natural reeds of grass sewn onto the backing, but also 3-D square “dots” of thick plastic or resin or vinyl … Doesn’t matter what the material is … There are raised, textured “dots” marching across this paper in a neat, orderly fashion.

But plastic can be sticky. On all of the bolts, the paper labels stuck to the plastic dots. Unrolling the grasscloth caused the labels to tear off strips, which remained stuck to the plastic dots. These scraps of paper could not be removed, so I had to cut off and discard the top 16″ or so of each bolt.

The really sad thing about this is that the wall height was such that I could have gotten three strips out of each double roll. But with having to discard paper from the start of each bolt, we were left with only enough remaining paper on the bolt for two strips.

Even worse on a few other bolts, the plastic dots stuck to not just the paper label, but to the paper backing of the grasscloth itself. This left strips of paper stuck to the dots, and also peeled bits of paper off of the back of the wallpaper – leaving the possibility of paste leaking through and staining the surface.

This sticky defect went through the entirety of each bolt, so there were three bolts that were unusable.

This meant that I could not finish wallpapering the remaining walls. And that we’ll have to send back the defective paper, and the homeowner will have to wait for the company to find non-defective paper, and ship it, and for me to have an opening on my schedule to finish the job.

The Thibaut Customer Service rep has told me that the company is aware of and has worked on this problem. (Thibaut is one company that actually LISTENS to us installers, and makes changes as needed.) Their solution is to place thin plastic wrap inside the bolts, to prevent the dots from coming into contact with any other material, like the paper backing.

I hope the replacement paper comes with this new innovation.

Stuck in the Dots

Thibaut’s “Union Square” is a smart-looking and much more affordable alternative to Phillip Jeffries’s “Rivets” grasscloth.

Unfortunately, today, both the white label and the brown cardboard from the protective “end caps” got stuck in the raised plastic “dots.” The residue could not be removed completely.

In today’s job, with the low ceiling height, I could normally get three 8′ strips out of each 24′ bolt. But with this issue, because I had to discard the first 6″ or so, I could only get two strips.

Maybe if they wrapped the bolt in plastic or waxed paper before adding the label, it would prevent this.

I emailed their customer service rep … Thibaut is much more concerned and responsive than lots of other companies, so let’s hope they listen and put some thought into this.

Poppy Dotty Pantry

You can get away with a lot of avant garde-ness in small areas. This home in the Kingwood community of northeast Houston is mostly traditional in floor plan and décor. Yet the homeowner has found a few places to inject a little playful personality.

One is the backs of these cabinets in a butler’s pantry (but they are using it as a bar).

The lightly textured, indistinct smeary dots spread in a diamond pattern are nothing short of fun!

What’s especially clever is that the homeowner found a colorway that coordinates with not just the wall paint and furnishings in the home, but also with the weathered chandelier in the adjoining dining room, the nubby rug, and other furniture.

These are the little details that “pull a look together” – and this homeowner did it all on her own, acting as her own interior designer!

This wallpaper pattern is by A Street Prints, which is by Brewster. It is a non-woven material that has a high fiberglass content which prevents expansion and shrinking, and makes removal at a later date easier. I hung it using the paste-the-wall method.

Affordable “Rivets” In Contemporary New Home Office

This “dots and blocks” or “rivets” pattern is pretty popular. Phillip Jeffries makes one called “Rivets” and Thibaut has a similar one called “Union Square.” These are both textured products on grasscloth. (Do a Search here to see my installations of both of these.)

This version is 1-dimensional, but with the added fun of shiny metallic-like Mylar.

It’s printed on a dimensionally-stable non-woven backing, and can be hung by pasting the paper (which I did) or pasting the wall.

The manufacturer is A Street Prints, in the U.K.

Tammy’s Tot’s Thibaut’s Dots

Mamma-to-be (name has been changed slightly, for privacy of my clients) wants a scheme of black and white with pink accents for the nursery. She looked at a LOT of options, and finally settled on this one.

I like it a lot. Unlike most “dot” patterns, these look a bit like little paw prints. They also are a charcoal color rather than stark black, with some touches of brown and tan, plus the background is ever so slightly off-white, which makes the whole look easy on the eye.

This wallpaper pattern is by Thibaut Designs, one of my favorite brands, and, as are most of their papers, it was nice to work with. It was bought from my favorite source for good quality, product knowledge, expert service, and competitive price – 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.

Mysterious Spot on Wallpaper – Air Borne Substances

If you look closely, you will see tiny tan dots all over this wallpaper. This is a paper wallpaper with a very light acrylic coating, that was installed maybe 30 years ago. The installer did a very good job – although he did not remove the previous layers (2!) of wallpaper backings, and did not use a primer.

I see spots like this almost exclusively in bathrooms – where you have enclosed spaces, toiletries, and humidity.

Since these dots are most prevalent around the upper areas of the room, I think they are stains from air-borne substances. However, an alternate theory is that they could be stains leaching through from the tan backing paper that was left on the wall, or possibly from the clay-based paste that was used for the installation.

Epounding:

My theory of air-borne substances is that if you spray something into the air, such as hair spray, air freshener, deodorant, or even onto a surface, such as glass cleaner, some of the substance becomes air-borne, hangs in the air, and eventually will come to rest on the walls. This results in perfectly round little specks on the walls. (See the Page to the right, “Care and Feeding of Your New Wallpaper.”

The stains could even be coming from cooking oils that splattered into the air, got sucked through the A/C ducts, and expelled into the bathroom.

Since this paper has just a light acrylic coating and no durable protective vinyl coating, most any substance floating around in the air would be able to land on the paper and penetrate into it, leaving these spots.

Don’t get me wrong – I MUCH prefer these thin acrylic-coated papers over thick vinyls and non-wovens. You just need to take appropriate steps to protect them.

Moving on…

Another possibility is because the installer didn’t remove the previous layer(s) of manila-type paper backing left from the original wallpaper installation(s), nor did he use a primer or sealer, it’s possible that chemicals from the old tan paper backing are leaching through onto the new wallpaper.

This is why art framers recommend acid-free mats and framing techniques. The same are available for wallpaper installations – but we’re getting into some pretty high-end topics now…

Getting back to our bathroom in Tanglewood (Houston).

Another very possible cause is the clay-based paste that was used to hang the wallpaper. I have seen many, many times, a “dirty,” tan discoloration coming through from underneath the paper, which I firmly believe is coming from the tan-colored clay-based paste that many installers like to use. I have many instances validating this theory.

The only discrepancy is that stains from the paste working their way through the wallpaper would not manifest as tiny, perfectly round specks, but as more generalized, mottled areas. Unless, the composition of the wallpaper included teensy dots in the paper fibers, intended to allow for porousity. Or humidity in the room forms miniscule droplets which land on the wall and then wick the tan paste up through the wallpaper. Which sounds reasonable to me. In fact, I like this theory a lot. And I really DISlike clay-based paste.

A final idea is that the wallpaper is just old. After 30 years on the wall, materials are bound to break down, humidity will take a toll, and it will be time for a change to a fresh new look.

Bottom line: Remove old wallpaper, properly seal and prime the walls, avoid clay-based pastes and instead use a clear wallpaper adhesive.

Check back tomorrow for more!

Do Not Use Aerosol Products in Your Wallpapered Room

When I finish a wallpaper job, I like to give my clients (and especially their children) a “lecture” about care and feeding. You can read the full version of this on a page found at the right.

For now, I want to explain why not to use spray products in your room.

Avoid the use of any aerosol or air-borne substances such as hair spray, glass cleaner, air freshener, etc. Residue can hang in the air and will eventually find its way onto the wallpaper. Please see the above attached photos, where you can see tiny dots of shiny residue on the middle panel of the door, and in the second photo, on the wallpaper. Instead, use a solid air freshener, or the new “Poo-Pouri” type products that are not air-borne. When applying hair spray, step into the shower so any overspray will land on the tile walls, not on the wallpaper.

For cleaning the mirror, have the housekeeper spray the Windex on her RAG, not onto the MIRROR –this will prevent overspray from getting onto the wallpaper.

Overlaying Modern and Traditional

The original red wallpaper in this tiny under-the-stairs powder room in a classically styled 1917 home in the Rice University area of Houston was fine enough. But it darkened the room, it didn’t suit the new homeowner’s taste, and it had become stained (see water splashes around the faucet handle on the right.)

The second photo shows the room after the old paper has been stripped off, little areas of the walls have been patched, and primer has been applied.

The new orange animal print on a white background greatly brightens the room. I love the gutsy way this homeowner has combined a modern pattern with old-world features, such as the elegant gilded mirror and the engraved gold tone towel ring and toilet paper holder (not shown).

She’s included contemporary elements, too – note the modern art hanging over the toilet. She also found a beautiful hand towel embroidered in bright orange with the family name’s initial. These little details are the crowning touch!

This homeowner is a friend of another gal I did wallpaper for a couple of times, who lives a few blocks away. I love it when people pass my name back and forth!

This wallpaper pattern is called “Panthera” and is by Thibaut Designs, and was bought from my favorite source for good quality, product knowledge, expert service, and competitive price – 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.