The accent wall in a Houston Heights master bedroom where I’m working is a little dark. Here I’ve removed the light sconces , and am getting ready to skim-float to smooth the textured wall . A little more light would be helpful! My bright 100 watt light bulb is screwed into a little gizmo that’s quite handy . It’s a socket for a light bulb that can be plugged into an electrical wall outlet . Alternately, as you can see, because there are two holes in the bottom of the metal prongs , you can slip the ends of the electrical wires into those holes . Of course, you have to be careful that the ends of those two wires ( one white and one black ) don’t touch each other . That could cause a spark and a shock , and maybe even trip the circuit breaker . Oh, and, also, be sure to turn the power off at the switch before doing this. If you want to be extra-cautious, you can kill the circuit at the breaker box – but really, turning off at the wall switch and then taking care not to let the two wires touch each other, will be pretty safe. When ready to work around this improvised lighting , especially with metal tools or wet wallpaper , I will turn off the power at the switch , remove the socket thingie from the wires in the wall , use screw cap wire nuts to cover the exposed wire ends , and tuck the wires a bit into the electrical box . Once the paper’s up in that area, I can reattach the socket and get me some light again. I stumbled upon these things at a garage sale decades ago, and got maybe 10 of them for a buck or two. But they’re still available in electrical departments of places like Home Depot and Lowe’s and our neighborhood favorite here in central Houston – Southland Hardware . They cost about a dollar or a dollar and a half each .
I didn’t get a picture of the original dull, putty-brown paint, which did nothing for this space. Here is the room primed with my favorite Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime, formulated specifically for use under wallpaper. Sink / vanity area before.Wow! This billowy cactus pattern makes a statement! Tall! The ceilings in this home are over 10′ high. This very fluid, vertical design makes them seem even higher! Your eye just swoops up toward the ceiling! This back wall is what you see when you first enter the room, so I centered the cactus pattern on this wall. I was also able to center the pattern on this sink / vanity wall. It will look nicely balanced when the mirror goes up. A new light fixture is coming, and will be installed where you see the round hole / electrical box in the wall. Close up.Milton & King is the manufacturer, and San Pedro is the pattern name. M&K makes nice wallpaper, and I enjoyed working with this. It’s a non-woven substrate, so you can paste the wall if you like – but I usually prefer to paste the paper. The surface felt like a thin, flexible vinyl – durable and fairly resistant to splashes in a bathroom. Their patterns often come as a 2-roll set, with an ” A ” roll and a ” B ” roll. It can be a little tricky to measure for these until you get accustomed to how they work. Further complicating the issue is that this design has a 51″ pattern repeat. In a nutshell, this means that, in order to match the pattern from strip to strip, you may have to cut off and throw away as much as 50″ (more than 4′ ! ). Thus, with these high ceilings and the long pattern repeat, instead of getting three strips from each 33′ long roll, I got only two. So a lot of paper went into the trash pile. It’s important to be cognizant of that and include the waste factor when calculating how much paper to purchase. Better yet – have the paperhanger figure it up for you! These homeowners had already ordered their paper before I arrived for the initial consultation. After measuring and calculating, I told them to purchase one more 2-roll set. Another odd thing is that at the end of the day, we ended up with two full unopened “B” rolls plus one full-length “B” strip,,,, that’s a total of five full-length strips. But we had only one 10′ strip left of the “A” rolls. This points out that, depending on the layout of the room, you can use more “B’s” than “A’s” or vice versa. I’m sure glad I made them buy that additional 2-roll set! This new townhouse in the Heights neighborhood of Houston is home to a young couple. They will be married in a month or two. I had originally set their install date for a week or so before the wedding. I got a last-minute schedule change, they were able to get the room ready for me on short notice, and so I got their wallpaper up today,,, and they can spend the next months focusing on their upcoming special day!
Whoa-ah! No electrical box in the wall, and wires just fished out of a hole … Probably safe, but it’s definitely not up to code. I’m guessing that it was not possible to center the light fixture on the wall, possibly due to the location of studs or other. This light fixture is coming down and will be replaced with something else. What it means to me is, I’ll put up the wallpaper, and will just have to hope that the new light fixture can be placed within the footprint of the existing hole in the wall. To install the new fixture, which may involve inserting a proper electrical box, the electrician may have to cut holes in the wall – and the wallpaper. Even if he manages to do this carefully and with minimal cutting into the wall, it’s very possible that Big Bubba will bumble and get dirt or mess of some kind onto the wallpaper. It’s hard to fix things like this. Often it means stripping off all the wallpaper on that wall, and rehanging the whole wall. Not fun for me, and not economical for the homeowner.The next day I learned that the homeowner is not going to reuse the light fixture, so I took it down completely, and then was able to remove the mounting plate. Now it’s possible to see what the heck went on. There is, indeed, an electrical box inside the wall. A quarter-moon sliver of the round electrical box is visible at the right. The box was not centered on the wall, possibly due to placement of studs in the wall or some other reason. So when the current light fixture went up, the mounting plate had to be moved to the left, in order to center it over the sink. The electrical wires were fished out of that small gap and were long enough to meet the light fixture a few inches to the left. There must have been a hole in the wall to repair, because I can see a chunk of new drywall that was added at some point. Of concern to me is that the new light fixture can be installed without mucking up the new wallpaper. Some fixtures have such a small base that they barely cover a standard electrical box. Here the base has to be large enough to cover both the new, centered mounting plate, and the hole in the wall which provides access for the wires. I brought the wallpaper as tightly as possible around that hole; if the electrician needs a larger hole for access, he can simply cut small bits of the wallpaper away. If the new base is a wider rectangle, it will be wide enough to cover that hole and also be centered over the sink – problem solved! Of course, there is also the worry that the new wallpaper might be soiled or scraped while the new fixture is being put up.
The walls and ceiling in this large powder room in a newish home in the Bridgeland Creek neighborhood of Cypress (northwest Houston) were originally a dark gold. I like dark rooms, but this one felt oppressive. It needed to be a little lighter, and to have a bit more interest on the walls.
The walls had a heavy texture, typical of new homes in the suburbs of Houston. I skim-floated the walls, then let dry overnight. The next day, I sanded the walls smooth, wiped off the dust, primed – and then was ready to hang wallpaper.
The pictures don’t adequately show the color of the new grasscloth, but we have natural brown grass color overlaid onto a really deep blue paper backing. The designer had the ceiling painted a dark, sort of murky blue, which coordinates really nicely with the blue in the grasscloth.
Lighting is funny … While I was working in the room, I had two 100 watt light bulbs; one suspended from the ceiling and one attached to where the light fixture belongs. The grasscloth just looked “normal.”
But once the room’s decorative light fixture went back up, it cast light on the textured surface in such a way that the “nubs” and knots really showed up! (see photo) The homeowner loved it!
As a note … With grasscloth, there is no pattern match, and you can also plan on seeing color differences between strips. So it’s important to plot where your seams will fall.
The electrical box, the light fixture, and the faucet were all in different vertical positions on the wall. Because the mirror would take up most of the wall behind the faucet and block the seam, I chose to center the seam on the light fixture, because it would be visible above the mirror. Well – sort of visible … as you can see, light rays from the fixture are so strong that no one can see where the seam is, anyway. 😦
The room had a “floating” sink. One of the photos shows the area under the sink. This area is open to view, and, because there are so many obstacles, it is difficult and time-consuming to wrap the paper underneath and trim around all those pipes and brackets.
The grasscloth wallpaper is by York. I was pretty pleased with the consistency of the material. Although some of the strips did present “paneling” and “shading” – color variances between strips – even strips that came off the same bolt and that were reverse-hung. One strip even had a rather abrupt color change mid-way from top to bottom. (no photo)
But that’s par for the course with grasscloth, and it’s considered to be “the natural beauty of this natural material.”
The interior designer for this project is Neal LeBouef, of L Design Group.
I removed a wall-mounted light fixture in a powder room and discovered this.
This is not really dangerous (depending on what’s inside the wall, that is), (and it’s been up for 20 years), but I doubt that it would pass code.
Several things are amiss… First and foremost, there is supposed to be an electrical box here. That’s a plastic or metal box. And all electrical connections are supposed to be made inside that box. In this case, the connection was made somewhere inside the wall.
The connection in this case is between the home’s wiring (either 12 ga. or 14 ga.) and the stranded wiring used by light fixtures. Somewhere along the line, someone fished some stranded wire through the wall, and made a connection somewhere inside the wall, and any cuts in the drywall were hidden, perhaps by the wall-mounted mirror.
So when I installed the new light fixture, there were not the usual 14 ga. wires to connect to, but instead stranded wires.
It’s a little unorthodox, not up to code, but not all that uncommon, and probably not dangerous.
All went well, the bulbs light up, and we expect no house fires. 🙂
Here is a double-sink vanity in a master bathroom (Photo 1). For this post, we are focusing on the right sink and light fixture. In Photo 2, the original light fixture has been removed. It was a “bar” type fixture, meaning that it had a backplate and front cover that were rectangular (bar) shaped, and you can see the outline of that by the different paint color in the Photo 2.
In Photo 2, you also see the electrical box in the wall that supplies power to this light fixture. It is not centered over the sink. That was OK, because the original light fixture was centered over the vanity, not over the individual sink. The electrical box was not centered over the sink. This could be because there is a stud in the way, or because it was centered over a previous, pre-remodel sink that was situated differently, or because the electrician was lazy.
Either way, it didn’t matter, because an extra length of electrical wire was added, and the bar fixture was long enough that it could be moved horizontally to the desired position over the sink, and it was perfectly centered and looked wonderful.
The problem came when my clients, new owners of this ’50’s era, mid century modern ranch style home, wanted to install an updated, sleeker light fixture Photo 3). This new fixture has a canopy (front plate) that is plenty large enough to cover the electrical box. But it is NOT large enough to cover a trip horizontally across the wall to a point centered over the sink.
Which is another way of saying that if this new light fixture is positioned over the sink, as the homeowners want, it will not cover the electrical box, and the electrical box will show. And plus, the connections will not meet safety codes.
This leaves the owners in the hapless position of either living with the new light fixture slightly off-center over their sink. OR they can have the electrical box moved to exactly centered over the sink.
This is sometimes more easily said than done. There may be a wall stud in the way that prevents repositioning the electrical box. If the box can’t be moved, and the electrician elects to run a wire along or through the wall, there will be cut-up Sheetrock, and patches and possibly humps in the wall. Lots more complications that electricians and Sheetrockers know that I don’t.
And it caused the homeowner to have a delay in the installation of their dream wallpaper. I can’t hang wallpaper until the box is moved and the wall is repaired. And more cost top to pay the electrician – on top of the new wallpaper, new towel bars and light fixtures, and labor to install all of this.
Probably the worst part is having the wallpaper install scheduled, then not being able to move forward, and then having to scramble to find a qualified guy who can get the lights positioned correctly, and all with a quick turn-around, so the wallpaper install can happen within a reasonable time of the original install date.
Moral of the Story: If you are going to change light fixtures (or any fixtues), it’s a good idea to do this before the new wallpaper goes up.
The Great Enemy of wallpaper is humidity. That is why some papers are not a good choice in some bathrooms. I particularly dislike solid-vinyl material on a paper backing, as they tend to absorb moisture and expand and curl and delaminate (vinyl detaches from the paper backing). You can see this happening in the top two photos.
The third photo is harder to see, but it is a shot of where I have removed the light fixture and you see the electrical box where the wires are connected inside the wall. Humidity has caused the screws on either side to rust and corrode. And the strap is completely rusted. (A strap is the metal bar that crosses the box and to which the light fixture is attached via a threaded nipple. In this picture, the screw on the right has been removed and the strap is the dark metal bar in a vertical position.)
What is intriguing is that humidity is present not just in the bathroom itself, which would be attributed to hot showers and poor ventilation, but also behind the wallpaper and inside the wall, sufficient enough to cause rusting inside the electrical box.
This is a 1930’s era home that was constructed with shiplap wood and lathe and plaster. It has been updated with modern air conditioning, but still has the original walls and wiring, and ventilation is probably not as adequate as it should be. There is no vent exhaust fan in this bathroom, either, so humidity from a hot shower would just hang out in the room until it dissipates over time.
Wallpaper looks much better when it goes behind switch plates, light fixtures, etc. Here is what it looks like after I have removed the fixture. You are looking at the electrical box, and the safely-capped wires inside it. The white holes on either side are where the screws that hold the fixture to the wall go.
The second photo shows you what it looks like with the light put back in place.
This material is a woven grasscloth, and has a texture that homeowners are loving right now.
I am working in powder room in an expensive home in a brand new subdivision in far northwest Houston, built by a big-name tract home builder. I have removed the wall-mounted light fixture and found this … The horizontal bar is the mounting bracket for the light fixture, and the round tube is the nipple that holds the fixture in place. No on to the electrical wiring …
Electrical connections are supposed to be enclosed in a plastic or metal electrical box. As you can see, there is no box in sight.
The wires were fished through the wall and pulled through a hole, sans box, and then connected to the light fixture.
The other problem is, the wires you are seeing are not the 12 or 14 ga. AWG copper wires that carry the household current that the light fixture is supposed to be hard wired to. Instead, thinner braided wire has been used to make connections somewhere inside the wall, hopefully inside a proper box, and then pulled through the wall and connected to the light fixture. You might also notice that these wires are silver (aluminum?) instead of copper.
At least there is a ground wire.
I suppose the electrician did this so he could center the light fixture over the sink. The subdivision may be outside any incorporated city limits, so possibly there are no governing building codes. Either way, I doubt this would pass code in Houston, or any city with an attnetive Building Inspector.
The homeowner had a guy remove two medicine cabinets from two bathrooms in her house. He patched the hole with a piece of plywood (usually they use drywall, but I guess this is OK, too), and then spread joint compound over the junctions. It didn’t look like he used tape to bridge the joined areas, so there’s a possibility that a crack will develop at the joints. He also neglected to sand everything smooth.
I hate it when workers tell the homeowner that the walls are “ready for wallpaper,” and then leave them with a mess like this, while they run to the bank to cash their check. The average homeowner has no clue that all these bumps and ridges will show under the new paper, or that cracks can develop all around the new patch.
This is the second time in two weeks that I’ve had to refloat another guy’s work. Today, between the two bathrooms, I guess I spent at minimum an hour, refloating, drying, and then sanding the areas smooth. I also had to patch around the area where a light fixture had been removed, and gaping holes were left where the toggle bolts had been yanked out of the Sheetrock, and where the electrical box had been moved.
Oh, yeah – and wasn’t he supposed to remove the wallpaper, before “fixing” the Sheetrock??
The last pic is how it looked after I finished floating, sanding, and priming. There will be no bumps under MY wallpaper!
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