Here before hanging wallpaper, I have removed the light fixture over the bathroom vanity . Some of the wall paint was stuck to the base of the light fixture, so was torn away from the wall when the fixture pulled away. In the photo, the cream colored area is the current semi-gloss paint , and the greyish area is the paint that is beneath it. Problem is, wall coatings surfaces should adhere to each other. In other words, the cream colored paint should not have peeled away from the grey paint under it. Usually this happens because proper prep was not done before the new layer of paint was applied. Surface coatings (meaning paint or wallpaper ) won’t stick to glossy surfaces, nor to dusty surfaces. So, if you’re painting over gloss paint, first a deglosser needs to be used, or a bonding primer . A good paint store guy ( Sherwin-Williams ) can advise you. If the original surface has dust , as from sanding or construction , this needs to be wiped off with a damp sponge , and that has to be rinsed clean frequently. Often a primer should follow that. Again, consult a knowledgeable paint guy. All of this is not so desperately important if you’re going to apply paint. Even on an unstable surface , paint simply dries and sits there. It only peels away if tension or pressure is put on it, such as removing the light fixture in the photo above. But wallpaper is different. Because wallpaper shrinks when the paste dries , tension is put on the seams . If the surface below is unstable , this tension can cause the surfaces below to come apart / delaminate . This can result in seams that pull away from the wall. This is not the wallpaper pulling away . This is the layers underneath that have actually come apart from each other. And it usually cannot simply be ‘ glued back down .’ You can do a search here to read previous blog posts about this issue.
Before. Heavily textured wall has been skim-floated with smoothing / joint compound and then sanded smooth , and then primed with Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime wallpaper primer . I’ve run a narrow line of dark green craft paint along the top of the chair rail / wainscoting , due to uneven edges . More on that in a soon-future post. Sink wall is done. Pattern is centered nicely on the faucet and in between the electrical boxes for the new sconces – They haven’t arrived yet and will be installed in a few weeks . The homeowner’s carpenter created this beautiful wainscoting out of 3D block paneling , and then painted it a rich dark hunter’s green . Right now there’s some sanding dust collected on it, plus bad lighting . In person, it’s gorgeous . The same company did a fantastic paneled wall / fireplace surround in the family room (not pictured) . Back to wallpaper … This shot is pretty color-accurate. I love the way the dark wallpaper coordinates with the green paneling . The pink and orange flowers , as well as the row of purple foliage , really stand out against all the dark . Close-up looks like an artist’s painting . Besides centering the pattern on the sink wall, the dimensions worked out so that I was able to balance the chameleons between the ceiling and chair rail , one just below the ceiling and the one here just above the chair rail. So no critter got cut in half . This product comes as a 2-strip (roll) set , with an “A” strip and a “B” strip in each box. Together, the two strips equal just a hair under 6′ wide , and a little over 9′ high . Here I’m rolling out the two strips so I can gauge the pattern , measure width and height , and plot the layout on the wall. Sobering fact: Each 2-strip set (one “roll”) cost about $500. This room used four of those sets. I always try to keep that in mind when working with people’s purchased wallpaper . OK, this damned Word Press blog account has AGAIN (2nd time in two nights!) deleted paragraphs that I spent a lot of time typing. I can’t recreate all the info I put into that lost post, but below I will try to include some of the important points. First and foremost – since the switch to the New Editor back about 2015, I pretty much HATE WORDPRESS . Anyway, here the company is providing a mock-up of what the “A” and “B” strips look like. The mock-up above shows the two panels next to each other. Since this is essentially a mural and the pattern doesn’t repeat vertically as more typical wallpapers do, you can plan on getting only one strip out of each panel. These walls are 6′ high , and the panels are 9′ high. So you’re losing 3′ with every strip. Further, the area over the door needed one panel that’s 2′ high. But an entire 9′ panel was needed for this, to get the 2′ high strip. So 7′ are going into the trash. Add to that, since this product comes as a 2-panel set , the homeowner had to buy a 2-panel set (at $500), even though only part of one panel would be used. This means that 1 + 2/3 9′ long panels were purchased but not used. Also, because this comes in panels instead of traditional rolled goods, there are no “extra” strips. This means that I can’t make any mistakes. Nothing like a little pressure while trying to install wallpaper ! No fears … this pattern and material went up nicely, and we had just enough paper to git ‘er done. Manufacturer is Breeze and the pattern is called Fantasy Tree . It was purchased from one of the show rooms in one of the Design / Decorative Centers in central Houston. It’s printed on the user-friendly / DIY – friendly non-woven material , which can be hung by pasting the paper (which I prefer) or the paste-the-wall method . It’s designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece with no damage to the wall when it’s time to redecorate . Definitely better than peel & stick (click my link on the right to read more about P&S ). The home is in the Oak Forest / Garden Oaks / Heights neighborhood of Houston .
Here I’m preparing to hang wallpaper on new drywall in a new addition to a 1930’s home in east Houston . First I’ve used a damp sponge to remove all construction and sanding dust. Next I’m going to apply my primer. It’s important to note that, even though this is wall is a new sheet of drywall, it’s not all the same surface. We have mostly large expanses of drywall / greenrock (the type of drywall that’s used in wet areas ). But at the joints , and covering where the screws and nails hold the drywall to the studs , we have joint compound . That’s the strips of white areas. And next to the crown and door molding and the baseboards is overspray from the paint that was applied to the wood trim. Here I’ve applied my light blue-tinted wallpaper primer over the top 1/3 of the wall. It’s important to be sure that the primer you use is suited for use under wallpaper . But also that it will properly adhere to and seal all the surfaces on the wall . My primer (below) will stick to just about anything. But this photo is interesting. Because my primer has been rolled on evenly across the wall , and cut in with a trim brush along the trim and corners . But you see that the primer is drying at different rates . On the right side of the photo, the primer is applied over the bare drywall, and it’s drying quickly. But toward the left, next to the door trim , the primer is drying more slowly. This is because there is paint overspray next to the door trim . The paint is semi-gloss enamel , and my wallpaper primer reacts with it differently from how it reacts to flat paint or drywall or other surfaces. Not a big deal. Just be aware of the need for different dry times due to different surfaces the primer is applied to. My preferred wallpaper primer is by Roman , called Pro 977 Ultra Prime. It’s not readily available, but you can find it on-line. All Sherwin-Williams stores can get it from the distribution center – but not all store managers know that, or are willing to do so. I get mine from Murphy Brothers Paint on Bissonnet near the Rice Village , who stocks it just for me.
Wallpaper is to go on the top 2/3 of the walls in this large dining room. But the walls are textured, and that texture will show through the new paper. Which looks pretty bad , IMO , especially since most the design is plain white background. So here I am applying a skim-coat by skim-coating / skim-floating the wall to smooth over the texture.Close up. A lot of people use a wide broad knife or drywall taping tool . But I prefer the control I have using this trowel . There will be ridges and valleys and imperfections . But tomorrow, when the smoothing compound is dry , I will sand everything smooth . I have to say, I’m pretty darned good at smoothing walls . 🙂I like to use the Plus 3 Joint Compound by the Sheetrock brand. It’s much easier to sand than the standard joint compound . Do NOT use the ” quick set ” version – coatings such as primer , paint , or wallpaper don’t like to adhere to this stuff . It’s made for small patches , not covering entire walls. BTW, for short, we simply call this ” mud .”Once the walls have been sanded smooth , all the dust vacuumed up, and residual dust wiped off the walls with a damp sponge , then I will apply my favorite primer, Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime , made specifically for use under wallpaper .
Before. I’ve skim-floated the textured wall , sanded it smooth , wiped off the residual dust , and then primed with Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime wallpaper primer . Now we’re ready for wallpaper !Done! Just a bit of texture , and a little neutral color to add some warmth to this large , mostly-grey , master bedroom . Oh – and some subtle sparkle . See following photos . It looks like real grasscloth . But it’s a faux! To help these homeowners avoid the disappointing color variations and low durability of real grasscloth , I encouraged them to consider textured vinyl products that recreate the look and texture of the real stuff , but without the drawbacks. Please click and read my link to info about grasscloth on the right of this page. Real grasscloth , and the fauxes , as well, have visible seams (very minimal issue with the fauxes). So it’s important to balance the strips , so you have equal widths of panels as you traverse the wall. In other words, you don’t want five 36″ wide strips and then one 20″ wide strip. And you’ll want to center those strips on the wall. Position them so you have an equal number of equally-sized strips on both the right and left sides of the wall. Another design concept is to not have a seam fall down the center of a wall. Rather, it just feels better aesthetically to have the strip straddle the center line . Here I’m hanging my first strip, having already calculated where the center of the wall is, the center of the wallpaper panel is, measured over to where the seam should fall, and then placed the red line of my laser level so it will guide where I should butt the edge of the wallpaper against. That’s my Bosch laser level gizmo sitting on the top of the headboard, shooting its red light beam onto the wall. Another shot. I’m using the vertical light beam ; the horizontal beam is not relevant in this install . This textured vinyl material does a pretty darned good job of recreating the look and feel of real grasscloth . This photo is from about 6′ away.A closer look. Note the bit of silver shimmer in the background , that adds a luxe look to the overall effect .The wallcovering is by York , one of my preferred brands . It’s on a non-woven backing , which has many advantages over traditional paper-papers. It’s breathable , stain-resistant , will strip off the wall easily and in one piece with minimal / no damage to the wall when it’s time to redecorate . It can be hung by the paste-the-wall method (which is what I did today) or the paste the paper technique (which I use most of the time). I felt that the seams laid down better and had less ” rebound ” edge curl from factory trimming than many of the heavier vinyl faux non-woven backed materials I’ve worked with. In other words, I liked this product pretty much! this particular material was also thin and flexible , so it was easy to work with and manipulate if needed. The home is in the Spring Branch area of Houston.
I usually insist on prepping the walls for wallpaper. But we had a time crunch here, and the homeowner asked her paint contractor to strip the old wallpaper and smooth the walls. He did a good enough job of skim-floating and sanding the walls smooth. Unfortunately, he neglected to wipe residual dust off the walls. The problem is that nothing sticks to dust. Not paint, not primer, and not wallpaper. Over time, stress, humidity, and other factors can cause the wallpaper to expand and contract, which puts tension on the seams. This tension tugs at the seams , and if the wall surface underneath is unstable ( dusty ), the layers can pull apart ( delaminate ), and you end up with failing seams. So I wiped down every square inch of wall, using a sponge and bucket of water. I rinsed the sponge frequently, to prevent build up of dust on the sponge. Here’s drywall dust wiped off in just a few swipes. In the background, you can see tracks of my damp sponge along the wall. These damp areas will need to dry thoroughly before I can apply my wallpaper primer. A heat gun helps speed that process along. One fear that I have is because, as you see in the photo, the contractor spray painted the woodwork, and in so doing, got a lot of overspray onto the wall. This can be painted over without much problem. But, as mentioned above, putting wallpaper over this can open a can of worms. Even with a good wallpaper primer underneath, the drying / shrinking wallpaper can put stress on the seams. If the wall underneath is dusty, the layers may let loose of one another and result in a popped seam .
The artwork and hanger have been removed, but this wall anchor remains in the drywall . It will leave a bump under the new wallpaper . I removed it from the wall. That left a hole that will leave an indention under the new paper . Here I’ve collected a bit of joint compound (we call it mud ), a plaster -like substance that’s used for installing drywall , as well as for patching holes and smoothing textured walls (called skim-floating or skim-coating )Here it is applied over the hole.To speed the drying process, I use my heat gun . Using a sanding sponge to smooth it.Wiping dust off with a damp sponge . Important, because neither primer nor wallpaper paste will adhere to dust . After this dried , I primed over this area and the whole wall with wallpaper primer . I like Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime . Now the wall is ready for wallpaper, with no worries that bumps or dips will show through .
There can be reasons for unstable walls, mostly cheap or poor quality paint, dust, someone applied paint over dust, improper prep, incompatible layers inside the wall built up over years (oil based paint, latex paint, dust, gloss paint, joint compound, etc.).
These can cause problems with wallpaper, mostly with the layers delaminating (coming apart), which causes the wallpaper seams to come away from the wall. Sometimes sheets of wallpaper simply fall off the wall.
This isn’t so much a problem with paint, because it just sits on the surface. But wallpaper shrinks when the paste dries, or expands and contracts with humidity, and can put tension on the seams
Before wallpaper goes up, one way to test for such unstable surfaces is the tape test . Use a razor blade to cut an “X” into the wall, scoring through the paint and maybe into a few layers beneath. Place a strip of blue painters tape over the cut. Pull the tape off the wall.
If paint comes away from the wall along with the tape, or if layers inside the wall come apart, you know you have to do a lot of specialized prep to stabilize the wall before hanging / installing the wallpaper.
This example is an interesting twist. The homeowner used a piece of tape to hold up a wallpaper sample. Then used an ink pen to write notes on it. When removed, the tape took the paint off – in the shape of the writing!
This young couple hosts the mother / mother-in-law a few times a year, and are lucky enough to have a private spare bedroom for her. To make it special, they wanted to jazz up the area a little. Enter this fun and whimsical wallpaper pattern .The room before was a pretty shade of murky teal – but needed personality and warmth. The wall started out with a light orange peel texture . I skim-floated the wall, and then sanded it smooth . Along the baseboard at the floor , here’s the dust from sanding , along with the sanding sponge I use – this is a modern take on the idea of wrapping sandpaper around a block of wood . I tack painter’s plastic across the wall from ceiling to floor to prevent dust from getting into the room or onto the furniture . Here’s the wall smooth and primed , ready for wallpaper . Since this is a dark wallpaper and I want to be sure that the white wall does not peek out from behind the seams, I stripe dark paint along the wall under where the seams will fall. Because non-woven papers don’t expand when wet with paste , it’s simple to measure the width of your strips and plot out where each seam will fall. Use the laser level as your guide . Do a Search here (upper right hand corner) to read more about this technique. I use craft paint from Texas Art Supply (or any hobby store ), diluted with water from a Gatorade bottle cap , and applied with a scrap of sponge . Further insurance is taking a chalk pastel (never oil pastel – oil bleeds and will stain wallpaper) and running it along the edge of the wallpaper strip – from the backside to avoid staining the surface – to cover the white substrate the wallpaper is printed on. This is to prevent white from peeking out at the seams , which can happen with dark papers. Centering the first strip in the middle of the wall, and using my laser level to ensure the strip is nice and straight and plumb . Note: The strip is not centered on the wall. The dominant pattern element is. Notice that the center of the dominant pattern motif – the white circular flower – is 3.5″ to the right of the left edge. This means that I had to position the left edge of the wallpaper 3.5″ to the left of the center of the wall, in order to get the round white flower to fall down the center of the wall. When you look again at the finished photo, you’ll notice that the white flower falls down the middle of the walls, and that it also appears at equal distance from both the right and left walls. Most people wouldn’t be able to put their finger on this symmetry , but it is something they subconsciously notice , and it lends a feeling of orderliness to the room. As orderly as you can be, that is, with pigs dancing around the meadow dandelions ! Finished accent wall . The three other walls painted in blue were a bit of a surprise, because one would think the more dominant color of green would be used. But with so much green in the wallpaper, green on the walls, too, would have been too much, perhaps. I like the cool feeling that the blue creates . There is plenty of the exact same blue in the wallpaper pattern to tie the walls and wallpaper together. Close up shows the stamped printing technique . You’ve gotta love a frolicking pig in a hand-knitted sweater! This pattern is called Hoppet Folk and is in the Wonderland line by Borastapeter , a Scandinavian company . It’s a nice, sturdy but flexible non-woven material that can be hung via the paste the wall installation method . In addition, this product will strip off the wall easily and in one piece , with no damage to your walls, when it’s time to redecorate. This is a very popular pattern, and I’ve hung it more times than I can count, just in the last two or three years. It does come in other colors – but most people gravitate toward this black version. The townhome is in the Rice Military area of central Houston .
This kind homeowner had the sink / vanity in this powder room removed. This makes it a LOT easier and faster for me to to get the wallpaper up, and with less stress on the paper and fewer relief cuts . Removing a sink that’s attached to the wall often damages the surface. Here you can see how the workman used spackle compound to cover the torn drywall and other damage.
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Close-up. This isn’t a very smooth surface, and the wallpaper will have a hard time grabbing ahold and adhering. It’s also way too porous and crumbly to support wallpaper. In the top photo, you see where I have applied smoothing compound on the upper portion of the wall. I’m working my way down. Once it’s dry, I will sand and prime it, and it will be nice and smooth. Here’s a shot of the fresh smoothing compound, before sanding.Some people use a drywall taping knife or a broad knife to apply the plaster-like substance. I prefer the trowel you see in the photo, because it gives me more control and precision. The 2″ flexible putty knife is for getting into smaller areas. The 3″ stiff ” Hyde ” putty knife is for knocking off high points or bumps on the wall before applying the smoothing compound. This process is called skim-floating or skim-coating . I like to use the Plus 3 lightweight joint compound made by Sheetrock . We just refer to it as mud . Find it in the drywall aisle. The Plus 3 spreads on easily enough, sands easily , and the dust falls to the floor where it can be vacuumed up easily – as opposed to getting air-borne and drifting all over the place. This box, which is approximately one cubic foot , weights 32 pounds . Ugh. Try carrying that across a parking lot and then up to the third floor of a townhome! I like to transfer the material to a 5-gallon bucket. This is what it looks like in the bottom of the bucket. Easy to scoop out. When I’m finished, I use a wet hand to smooth down the surface, wipe residue off the sides of the bucket, then place a thick sheet of plastic over the surface to keep air from drying it out. Then, of course, I put the lid onto the bucket.
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