The two-sister duo who selected patterns and colors for this League City (Houston) home did a superb job coordinating the two bedrooms, one bathroom, and the dining room and kitchen. The whole house has a very pulled together look, with a theme of gardens, light, fresh, and uplifting.
Humidity is the great enemy of wallpaper. In addition, the lower-end, pre-pasted, solid-vinyl papers with the gritty manila paper backing are not a good choice, in my opinion, in any room, but particularly not humid rooms like bathrooms. This house on the beach with irregular climate control spelled double trouble.
This home on Pirate’s Beach on Galveston Island (south of Houston) was on the beach, so was exposed to lots of humidity. In addition, because the homeowners use it only sporadically, they turn the air conditioner off or set it to a run less while they are away. This means that the home fills up with humidity. And even when the A/C is running, air circulation in this room is poor.
Metal elements such as the light fixture and screws holding things into the walls were rusted. Mildew was found behind some sheets of wallpaper. And the wallpaper itself was curling at the seams – a result of the paper backing absorbing moisture from the air, expanding, and forcing the vinyl surface to curl backward at the seams. (Read more about this on the page to the right about vinyl wallcoverings.)
Another factor for the poor performance of the original vinyl wallpaper was that the walls had not been primed, but the installer put the vinyl paper on top of new drywall. And nothing was done around the shower to protect the paper from splashing water.
I stripped off the old vinyl wallpaper, washed the walls with bleach to kill the mildew, and primed with the penetrating sealer Gardz. Once the new paper was up, I ran caulk along the top of the vanity backsplash, and all along the shower and tub, to prevent splashed water from wicking up under the paper.
The new wallpaper is a thin non-woven material that is “breathable.” No wallpaper is going to hold up under very humid conditions. But this one has a much better chance of staying nice and flat for many years.
The new wallpaper is very similar in appearance to the original, and keeps with the beachy feel of the home. It is by Brewster, in their Chesapeake Bay collection, in the Easy Walls line, and is reasonably priced. It is a pre-pasted material. I did augment the manufacturer’s paste with a .
In the photos, the paper looks blotchy. That is because it is still wet; it will be nice and white when it’s finally dry. The drying time worries me, though, because after six hours, even some parts of the first strips were not dry. This is a real indicator that the room has some serious humidity and air circulation issues.
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The existing wallpaper stripped off easily, thanks to my wonderful primer oil-based KILZ Original. The walls were left in perfect condition. Except for the lower 1/4 of the walls … Five years or so ago, these poor homeowners had had a toilet leak, with ensuing flood, that resulted in workers having to cut out and replace the bottom foot or so of Sheetrock. Naturally, the workmen put their patches on top of the wallpaper, which made it impossible for me to strip off the paper. So I had to skim-float the area to try to even out the transition from the thicker wall surface at the bottom of the wall, to the level of the wall above that area.
My floated area had to dry, and then had to be sanded smooth, and then sealed – I used Gardz, a penetrating sealer. Then I was able to hang the new wallpaper. The new pattern is a little “quieter,” and it goes from floor to ceiling, so the look is different from the previous 2-pattern look.
The new wallpaper was pre-pasted, and is in the Easy Walls line by Chesapeake, which is made by Brewster. It was bought at a discounted 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.
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The pattern and color blend perfectly with the paint in the girl’s adjoining bedroom, as well as with the faux-wood wallpaper in the attached powder room. (See previous post)
This wallpaper pattern is in the Easy-Walls, Chesapeake collection by Brewster, and is a pre-pasted paper product. It is thin and pliable and was a positive delight to work with, and can be expected to stick tight to the wall for a looong time. There was an ever-so-slight bit of shrinkage at the seams (hair’s breadth), but that is typical of this type of paper, and is much preferable to the curling and peeling that some solid vinyl papers can exhibit.
It 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.
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Wow, I really liked this fake wood wallpaper! I’ve gotten a few requests lately for patterns that look like wood paneling, so I am happy to find this one, which looks pretty real, and even has a little texture to it. It is from the same book, and is made to coordinate with, the pattern I hung in the adjoining tub room of this bathroom. (See post above.)
I hung this paper so the “planks” run vertically. But in the homeowner’s other home, a few years ago, I hung a similar paper horizontally. https://wallpaperlady.wordpress.com/2013/11/16/faux-wooden-plank-wallpaper-a-fun-installation/
This wallpaper pattern is by Brewster, in their Easy Walls / Chesapeake line, 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.
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This storybook-feeling wallpaper went on an accent wall behind a crib for a soon-to-be-born baby girl. The pattern is an especially good choice because it is not too “babyish” and will grow with the child. Also, the neutral taupe color can be accented with just about any other color – navy blue, pink, green, bright orange, or even brown or black, making it quite versatile and long-lived.
I hung this in a baby’s room in Oak Forest, in Houston. It is by Brewster, from the Chesapeake line, one of their Easy Walls papers. It was pre-pasted and a dream to work with, seams practically invisible. (The dark splotches in the photo will disappear a the paper dries.)
This faux finish pattern had no real direction, so the eye didn’t notice if it hung right-side-up, upside-down, or sideways. This kitchen had lots of horizontal spaces, all shorter than the width of the wallpaper. So I was able to “railroad” the paper – run it laterally – on the long horizontal runs. This provides a nice straight line at the ceiling, and, most important, eliminates seams.
With a strip run horizontally intersecting with a strip run vertically, it’s impossible to match the pattern. So, to minimize the pattern mis-match, I overlapped the pieces and did a double cut (splice), using a curved line, rather than a straight cut, to disguise the seam.
This faux finish wallpaper is by Chesapeake Easy-Walls, #PN58593
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