The homeowner wanted the look of grasscloth, but didn’t want the stains that can happen when splashed with water or toiletries. Another displeasing feature of real grasscloth is the very visible seams , and the likelihood of color differences between panels (called paneling or shading ). So she opted for this textured vinyl version. She loves the look. It is a handsome room!Original 1990’s paper has been stripped off, Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime wallpaper primer has been applied, and we’re now ready for paper!This material has a pattern that matches from strip to strip, so you don’t get the eye-jarring look of broken fibers at the seams , like with real grasscloth or other natural materials. Here’s a close-up, detailing the texture. About ¼ from the right is a seam – it’s barely noticeable . Opposite wall. For balance, I plotted that the seams fall at the same point on each wall – 18” from the mirror frameI’m getting ready to hang a strip that will knock against that mirror frame. To keep paste from slopping onto the molding , I’ve applied this thin, flexible blue plastic tape along the edge. This will keep paste off the molding while I trim that strip to fit against the molding. Once that trimming is done, I’ll remove the blue tape and then smooth the wallpaper back into place.Since this is a dark wallpaper, I worry about the light colored primer peeking out at the seams. This can happen because sometimes the factory hasn’t trimmed the edges perfectly straight , or the wall may have uneven areas or bows , or some papers shrink a tad when they dry . So here I’ve plotted where the seams will fall and have striped the area with diluted paint .I use bottles of craft paint from the hobby store (good old Texas Art Supply !), and apply with a scrap of sponge . And my trusty Gatorade bottle cap with water, to dip the sponge into to dilute the paint … you don’t want full strength paint under there. Wallpaper wants to adhere to a primer made for wallpaper – not paint designed to color Christmas ornaments. Another and probably more important trick is to color the edges of the wallpaper. This navy blue wallpaper was printed on a white stock / substrate , and it’s highly likely that the edges of that substrate will show at the seams . So, again back to Texas Art Supply (or a good hobby store) for chalk or pastel , which I run lightly along the edge from the back so as not to get any color onto the surface of the wallpaper . That little dark nub you see is my chalk… the stuff breaks easily. It’s important that you not get oil pastels or use any kind of ink marker, as these will leech into the wallpaper and stain it, leaving you with a nasty dark line down the seam . I really liked this product. It was flexible enough to wrap around a rounded / bull-nosed corner , but stiff enough to not warp . It’s on a non-woven substrate , which contains polyester , which makes it less likely to shrink . This stuff is also designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece with no damage to your wall when you redecorate . Another advantage of non-wovens is that they can be pasted and hung immediately, with no booking or wait time. Although I generally prefer to paste the paper , you also have the option to paste the wall with this material. The non-woven backing won’t be sucking up humidity like the paper backings used years ago (or in modern lower-end products), so greatly reduced chance of seams coming loose if your teenager spends an hour steaming up the bathroom . The vinyl surface means that it will be resistant to stains from water , toothpaste , and little (and big!) hands . In addition, I liked that the material has a realistic grasscloth look, and a realistic texture , as well as a pattern that could be matched, which helps disguise the seams. I didn’t match the pattern in the corners, though, to avoid having the horizontal bands running around every wall of the room at the same height. Looks better to break it up a bit. Also gave me more flexibility in placement of seams. The brand is A Street Prints and is in their Scott Living line (as in the Scott Brothers of HGTV fame). The home is in the Champions Forest area of Houston . installer paperhanger
The homeowner’s contractor’s guy hung this accent wall in an under the stairs powder room . He did a good enough job. But there were some bubbles / wrinkles . Depending on where you’re standing in the room, and where light is coming from, the bubbles were somewhat noticeable , even with this busy patterned wallpaper . It bugged the homeowner , and she wanted it to look better. Dry-stripping the wallpaper resulted in this. The paper came off in an intact sheet, as the mfgr promises. But it took some of the primer along with it. Let’s examine this. It’s a good thing, at least, that the previous installer used a primer, and hopefully one made for use under wallpaper. But, to be honest, a wallpaper primer is designed to let go of the wallpaper when you start to strip it off the wall. So maybe this is just paint, or a paint primer . Second, I have a suspicion that, after skim-floating and then sanding the wall to smooth it, dust was left on the wall , and then trapped between the wall and the primer. That’s a likely reason why the primer / paint pulled away from the wall so easily. Nothing sticks to dust! So it’s imperative that, after vacuuming , you take a damp sponge – rinsed frequently – and wipe down the entire wall, and then let dry , before priming. The primer also has to dry completely, before wallpaper goes up. I switched to wet-stripping the remaining wallpaper, and had less damage . But was still left with a wall with lots of irregular and un-smooth areas . So to prepare it for wallpaper , I first sealed loose or dusty areas with GARDZ , which is a penetrating and hard-drying sealer for torn drywall or other unstable surfaces . It’s pretty cool stuff. After that dried, I applied a very thin skim coat of joint compound (which we call mud ). Once that was dry, I sanded smooth , vacuumed , wiped off residual dust with a damp sponge, let dry, and then primed with Roman Ultra Prime Pro 977 and let dry. Here’s what it looked like when I was done with the prep .And here it is with the new paper up. I switched to wet-stripping the remaining wallpaper, and had less damage . But was still left with a wall with lots of irregular and un-smooth areas . So to prepare it for wallpaper , I first sealed loose or dusty areas with GARDZ , which is a penetrating and hard-drying sealer for torn drywall or other unstable surfaces . It’s pretty cool stuff. After that dried, I applied a very thin skim coat of joint compound (which we call mud ). Once that was dry, I sanded smooth , vacuumed , wiped off residual dust with a damp sponge, let dry, and then primed with Roman Ultra Prime Pro 977 and let dry. This single wall was a bit of a challenge, for many reasons. For one thing, we really didn’t have enough paper. Luckily, the previous guy had kept the left over scraps, and I did need to use some of those. It also was OK to mis-match the pattern when necessary, as the design is very forgiving. The rounded bull-nosed edges around and over the window are a PITA. This pattern was forgiving in that respect, too, as well as the layout of the area over the window. There were also some printing defects , which will be addressed in a future blog post . Oh – and I, also, got bubbles ! In fact, I hung this same brand a few weeks ago and got bubbles then, too. Some I got rid of by making a tiny cut with a razor blade and then pushing the air out with my plastic smoother . But, usually, with these pre-pasted materials, once they get good and dry, small bubbles dry flat and disappear. Not sure why the other guy had problems with this. But I will say that the bubbles were larger than typically show up with these papers.Close up.The pattern is called Brownstoner , and is by Flavor Paper . I am not a fan of their vinyl products, and definitely not their peel & stick . But I do like their EZ Papes , which is a pre-pasted material . Not crazy about the bubbles, though. The home is in the Eastwood neighborhood of Houston . installer
I’ll be hanging grasscloth / sisal wallcovering today. This material is thick and stiff and difficult to see and feel through, and equally hard to cut through. In addition, the backing on this particular product (by Phillip Jeffries ) pretty much turns to mush once it gets wet with wallpaper paste , so, under the blade, it drags and tears and pulls away from the grass fibers , leaving gaps . All of which means that it’s tricky to get tight, clean trims when you’re going around intricate moldings such as in the photo. So here I’m using paint of a complimentary color and shade to fill in around the molding edges. That way, in case the wallpaper won’t trim perfectly tightly against the molding, my white wallpaper primer won’t show through. I use plain old matt finish acrylic craft paint from Texas Art Supply (which is close to me) or any craft store , and a small, angled artist’s brush .
The entire bedroom is to be wallpapered . Originally, all the walls were a soft sage green . The homeowner wants the room to be a sort of retreat . Here the walls are primed and ready for wallpaper . Done! What a fun pattern . Peacock is very popular. At first the homeowner wanted this on all four walls. But I mentioned that the circular movement of the design could be overwhelming all the way around the room. So she opted to put the bold pattern on just this feature wall, and chose something quieter for the remaing three walls. IPositioning the first strip . I plotted to have the peacock fall down the center of the wall, so it will be balanced nicely behind the headboard . Note that the center of the peacock isn’t perfectly in the center of the wallpaper, so I had to position the strip a little off-center on the wall, so the peacock’s body would hit the center point . Because this is a dark paper and sometimes the wall peeks out from between the seams , I’ve striped black paint under where the seams will fall. Not too heavy, though, because you want the wallpaper primer to still be able to do its job, part of which is to be grabbing and holding the seams down. I use a heat gun to get the paint to dry quickly. I just use acrylic craft paint from the hobby store ( Texas Art Supply , which is close to me). I daub some paint on a scrap of sponge , dip it in a small amount of water (in the Gatorade bottlecap) to dilute it a bit, and then run it down the wall, using the light beam from my laser level as a guide. I also use pastel chalk to color the white edges of the wallpaper, so they are not visible . Be sure that what you use is chalk and has no oil … oil will stain wallpaper and other surfaces (think potato chips on a paper napkin). This Rembrandt brand is oil-free. Apply from the back, getting color on the edges only, and not on the surface. This is a non-woven / paste the wall material. It’s strong and durable and stain-resistant . In addition, it will strip off the wall easily and in one piece when you redecorate, leaving no damage to the wall. installer Houston
Kinda bland, huh?Well, let me fix that for you! With just two colors and a simple, yet flowing design, this wallpaper pattern breathes life into this room – but doesn’t overwhelm. Pattern is nicely centered between the windows.This is another wall that also has two windows . I was able to center the pattern between these windows, too. Centering on two different walls in the same room is actually something of a feat – but that’s a story for another time. From a distance .This home has bull-nosed / rounded outside corners and edges, as well as the arch . Very tricky to get wallpaper trimmed to these areas neatly and evenly . See other posts for more info on this.Close up. The design has a weathered fabric texture sort of background . The copper colored foliage is lightly metallic , so has a slight shine – but only when viewed from certain angles , so it’s a subdued luster that’s added to the room . Note how the coppery color coordinates with the light fixtures / chandeliers . The wallpaper is by Graham & Brown , a good manufacturer with quality papers. The pattern is called Twining . This company makes nice non-woven papers , which have a polyester content which makes them stain-resistant and durable . They are also designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece and with no damage to your walls when it’s time to redecorate . G&B ‘s materials are usually flexible and nice to work with – although this particular one did tend to drag and tear when being trimmed – even with a new blade. I usually paste the paper , but non-woven materials can also be installed by paste the wall . The home is in the Oak Forest / Garden Oaks / Heights neighborhood of Houston . This project took me three days, to smooth the textured walls , and then hang the paper around four walls , and trim around those pesky rounded edges and the arch .
Like many thick, textured vinyl products, the edges curl back just a teeny bit, due to how the material is trimmed at the factory – probably by hot rollers that caused the plastic to melt a tad and thus curl back. Believe it or not, run your finger over this seam and you’ll feel that it’s perfectly flat. In fact, this look is typical with real grasscloth, because the edges tend to fray up a bit. From two feet away, you don’t notice any of this.To support my hot-trim-roller theory, here are two strips that, because I needed narrower strips, and because it was over a door where the pattern didn’t have to match perfectly, I used my straightedge and razor blade to trim off one side from each strip. This seam is the join of those two trimmed edges. No curled edge. There’s nothing wrong with any of this – it’s just part of the manufacturing process, and it’s what you can expect to get, with the heavier textured vinyl products. Seems especially prevalent with the new-ish non-woven backings.The wallpaper is made by York . installer houston
Before. Walls primed and ready for wallpaper .Vanity area done. This blue , brown , and metallic gold material has the warm look and texture of real grasscloth, but is much more water- and stain-resistant and consistent in color . It also has a pattern that can be matched , so the seams are much less visible than with real grass . Note that some of the lines you’re seeing in the photo are cast by the light fixture .Going around these arched windows took a while!Toilet wall without lights off.With lights on, you see the true colors more accurately. Note the light fixture casting vertical stripes on the wall .Like many thick, textured vinyl products, the edges curl back just a teeny bit, due to how the material is trimmed at the factory. Believe it or not, run your finger over this seam and you’ll feel that it’s perfectly flat. In fact, this look is typical with real grasscloth, because the edges tend to fray up a bit. From two feet away, you don’t notice any of this.This material mimics the look and texture of real grasscloth .Another wall, along the shower . One nice thing about grasscloth is that, since you don’t need to match pattern motifs, you don’t have to paper walls in sequence or order. We were a little tight on material on this job, so I hung my full length walls first, then went back and hung the shorter walls. This helped me plan usage – how many strips needed and how many strips I could get out of each roll / bolt of paper . Made by York , one of my favorite manufacturers.
Here, I’m hanging paper from right to left, and have just come around a corner , which is in the center of the picture. You almost never wrap wallpaper around an inside corner . Corners are never straight , and the paper will buckle in the corner . And the edge will not be straight , nor plumb , and thus the next strip won’t butt up perfectly against it . And it’s also probable that the strip will torque off either up or down, causing your pattern to creep up or down the ceiling and floor lines. The answer is to stop the strip of wallpaper in the corner , and cut a new piece for the subsequent wall. But you can’t just trim tightly to the corner. Because most likely there will be gaps (remember I said that corners are never straight?), so some of the wall will show. So what you do is wrap the paper just a teeny amount around the corner , and then overlap your new piece over that. This does mean that you will lose some of the pattern in that overlap. I can’t stand that pattern mis-match, so most of the time, the way I do it, I’ll take a fresh strip of wallpaper for the next strip (to be placed on the left in the photo) and trim it so the pattern matches as perfectly as possible. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to the fat cut … In the photo, I’ve cut my strip on the left 1/2″ wider than needed to fit this wall. I don’t want this 1/2″ of wallpaper under my overlapped new strip, because the leaves a visible ridge. But you do want a little underlap, because you need that to prevent a gap from showing in the corner. So in the photo, I’ve trimmed off most of that 1/2″ and trimmed it down to an unnoticeable 1/8″. How on earth can you get a trim that thin and that consistent?!I use this handy metal plate with a rolled edge (on the left). This plate has bends and other edges of other thicknesses , rounded edges , won’t leave marks on wallpaper, so it has many uses.Here’s a close up of the trim guide edge that allows for that 1/8″ fat cut . Back side of the plate. (Don’t mind the blue tape – it’s just there temporarily.)This edge is a little thinner , and would cut too close for use in a corner. But it does have a use if you need a trim in an area where you don’t want the paper trimmed tightly into the edge / corner. You’re looking at where wallpaper meets crown molding. This join edge has gaps between the molding and the wall in some areas, and other areas have gunk and uneven areas. Trimming with my usual trim guide would cut too close and let some of these icky things show. So here I’ve used the thicker trim guide. As you can see, it allows the wallpaper to wrap ever so teeny much of a bit, so it covers the bad area, but doesn’t creep onto the molding. Here’s another example, along door molding. At the top, I used my usual thin trim guide (see below). But this allowed a bit of a gap to show, due to decades’ build up of paint , caulk , dirt , etc. So, midway, I switched to using the steel plate as a trim guide. This made the cut just fat enough that the wallpaper wrapped a hair and covered the icky area. Here’s my usual trim guide . I’m guessing it’s about 9″-12″ long . You can see that the edge is very thin . In most cases, this is ideal, because it allows for good, tight trims right smack into corners and edges. That steel plate shown above was invented by a colleague in the Wallcovering Installers Association ( WIA ) . They are all the same length, but they come with three different degrees of angles , and can be used for lots of wallpaper installation tasks . The colleagues has them manufactured and then sells them to us paperhangers . She sells other cool tools , too. If you’re interested in purchasing any of these , or seeing what else she has, go here https://www.facebook.com/customwallpapertools or here https://www.wallpapertoolstore.com/?fbclid=IwAR2NFrG2gWSzNClNMB0gHDiQHbnkhyNhthaOFQaK8MCaU7rBYVQhYQkO0nc Her name is Eunice , so we call them EuniTools .
After you paste a strip of traditional wallpaper , it needs to be folded pasted-side-to-pasted-side and then set aside for a few minutes, so the paper can absorb the paste , expand , relax , etc. Preferable to place it in a black trash bag while this is going on, to help prevent it from drying out during this booking time . But sometimes papers still dry out , particularly at the edges . The composition of the substrate , as well as the type of adhesive will come into play here. And some papers just want to curl at the seams when they get wet with paste . One trick to help curtail this is to paste the paper, book as usual, roll up gently, and then dip just the bottom 1/8″ of the edge into a bucket of clean water. This bit of water helps keep that paste damp and workable , and also encourages the wallpaper edges to curl toward the wall rather than away from it. In today’s instance, because I was working with delicate paper and a contrary clay -based paste , I chose to dip the edges in water before pasting. This was my first time to try this method, and it worked great . You do have to ensure that the water doesn’t wash the paste off the paper, or dilute it. Because you need that paste there to hold the paper against the wall! Note: Do not do this with non-woven papers , which are also called paste the wall . Excessive moisture can cause staining .
Large creases spanning the width of the bolt were found in several places – luckily just in one bolt / double roll of the wallpaper .Most non-woven wallpapers are strong and durable . But some versions, such as this one, have a surface that creases easily. You have to be careful while handling it during installation . Here we see that even the manufacturer has problems with it, because these creases were deep inside the roll and caused by the factory. Also, very common with York – printing defects . Here I have laid two different bolts of paper on top of each other, to compare the printing. Look at the green leaves on the left side. Note that the ones on the far left are closer to the edge of the wallpaper . But the ones to the right are a bit further back from the edge . Curious, because both bolts are from the same Run (do a Search here to read more about Runs). Obviously, the factory’s trimmers / cutters or the printer mechanism have gone off track and skewed the trimming / printing .so these two rolls cannot be used next to each other, because the pattern doesn’t match correctly , as you see here. (Also note the creases on the right.) Actually, with this busy pattern, we could have gotten away with this slight pattern mis-match . (With the homeowner ‘s consent, that is.) But we were lucky that I had suggested she purchase a little extra paper . So we had three rolls of the version on the left, and two rolls of the one on the right. I was able to plan out the powder room so that I used the three rolls on three walls, and then kept the last long wall for the two bolts of paper on the right. Note that sending this material back was not a viable option. These issues are pretty common with York products, so we’d likely just be getting the same thing all over again. Disappointing, because, until just a few years ago, York was a very dependable , quality brand . The pattern is called Wildwood and is by Rifle Paper , which is made by York .
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