There were eight double roll bolts of this wallpaper , to cover a large powder room in Houston. Four were rolled so the pattern came off the top of the roll, and four were rolled the opposite way, with the bottom coming off first. This Katie Kime brand is custom-printed , so you can assume that all these rolls are from the same run , or batch . But maybe not - why are some forward and some backward ? Possibly the company substituted some returned goods, or some old stock they had sitting around the warehouse, for half of this order. I didn't want to risk putting strips of slightly different shades on the same wall. So I had to carefully plot the room so I used the "forward" rolls on some walls, and the "backward" rolls on the others. This does eat up additional paper , so good thing I always have the homeowner purchase a little extra. Also note the crease in the roll on the right. There were a few other creases in other rolls.
I have no idea what happened to the font in the section above, nor do I know how to get it back to the original. All I know is that I HATE this “New Editor” that WordPress foisted on us a few years ago. Perfectly HORRIBLE. And their Customer Service doesn’t care. Anyway … moving on … Note the horizontal smudge next to the top of the capitol. Since this Austin Toile pattern has a 25″ pattern repeat, discarding this piece ate up minimum of 2′ of material (x 24″ width = 4 square feet) and potentially more, to get the correct pattern match. Usually this brand prints on a nice non-woven / paste the wall substrate. But, like other manufacturers, Katie Kime has had supply issues obtaining raw materials . During the height of the Pandemic , they resorted to printing on some positively awful stuff. Extremely heavy , thick , un- pliable , stretched to the extent that the pattern wouldn’t match properly, and more. One was completely un-hangable and had to be sent back. I can’t find all my posts re those challenges, but here is one: https://wallpaperlady.wordpress.com/2021/07/21/katie-kime-tough-install-today-draft-messed-up-delete/ But they’ve since gone back to printing on their usual stock, and I’ve not had problems lately. So when I first picked up this box of 8 double roll bolts, I was surprised at the weight of it. Also the paper had a shiny surface and was obviously composed of vinyl . I couldn’t tell if the substrate was non-woven or paper . I feared they had gone back to printing on that bad material , or perhaps were using up what they had in the back of the warehouse . There were no instructions included, nor any information at all – not even a brand name! Although I could find instructions on-line, you can’t be sure these are current and applicable to the rolls in the box. KK has amazingly good customer service , and you can usually get intelligent answers via phone or on-line chat … but my call to them went to voice mail , and then we got disconnected, so I gave up. After hanging the first few strips, I figured out that this was a flexible vinyl on a non-woven substrate, so that part was good. However, the thickness of the material interfered with getting good, tight, flat seams , as you can see somewhat in the photo. The seams aren’t horrible, but a better non-woven without the vinyl usually produces almost invisible seams. The surface was shinier than usual. Shiny tends to show every imperfection in the wall underneath. Here the thickness was a bit of a help, as it helped cushion any slight dips or pimples on the wall. There was also an odd orange discoloration about 1.5″ long on the edge of one strip. Very faint, but I could see it, and sometimes these things end up catching your eye. I also worry that it might be some substance that will bleed into the paper and cause a larger stain over time. Of course, this popped up after I had hung a very difficult piece in a tight spot, and then hung the subsequent strip. In other words – no way was I taking it off the wall and re-doing. I cut out a design motif and pasted it over the area. Another thing I was unhappy with has happened a number of times with KK paper. The pattern will match perfectly at the top of the wall, but begin to slide up or down, creating a mis-match , as you move down the wall. I think that a lot of it has to do with the vinyl material, because it’s stretchy. The weight of the paste and the vinyl will cause the bottom section of the strip to sag. This simply doesn’t make sense, though, because, if the paper is going to absorb moisture from the paste and expand (which many papers do), each strip should do so at the same rate, right? But not. I finally deduced, correctly or not, that the pattern gets distorted as it’s wound into a roll. So my theory is that if you take your 10′ strips from the same position in each roll, the pattern should match. In other words, take a 10′ strip from the top of roll #1. Take your next strip from a brand new roll #2. Third strip from roll #3. Obviously, this leaves a whole lot of unused paper. For shorter areas like over doors, where it’s harder to see, and where you can fudge the pattern a bit, I used the paper from the insides of the rolls, again, roll #1 next to roll #2, etc. But this doesn’t work on every instance, so you’re gonna be stuck with many areas where the pattern doesn’t match perfectly across the seams. The solution is to match the pattern at eye-level , and then allow it to go off as it moves toward the ceiling and floor. There were other issues with this paper that were disappointing to me. But not overwhelmingly awful. Most homeowners would not notice. But I sure hope that this was a one-time issue, and Katie Kime will go back to its former good-quality, non-woven material.
The homeowner accidentally ordered half as much wallpaper as was needed, so more was ordered. Unfortunately, we were not able to get the same run number (also called batch number or dye lot ).
Wallpaper bolts printed at the same time will all have the same run number. Then the next time the manufacture prints this material, he’ll mix up a new batch of ink. This new ink will almost assuredly be a teeny slight difference in shade .
You can’t put wallpaper strips from different runs next to each other on the same wall; you will see this slight color difference and the wall will have a subtle yet unpleasing striped effect.
You can, however, use different runs on different walls, “breaking” the run in a corner. You won’t notice the color difference because light hits different walls differently and causes a natural color difference.
This trick works, but it does require extra wallpaper.
Moral of the story:
~Always confirm how much paper is needed with the installer before ordering.
~Always buy a more than you think you’ll need; one extra double roll / bolt at minimum.
Re my previous post … This wallpaper by Milton & King comes as a 2-roll set, with an “A” roll and a “B” roll.
The 2-roll set thing forced the homeowner to buy more than she needed. With the two sets, we had four rolls. Each roll gave us three strips. Thus we had 12 strips. I needed only seven strips to cover the wall. So I only needed three rolls (total of nine strips, of which two would be unused ). Because you have to purchase both the “A” and “B” rolls, we ended up with one entire roll (three strips), that was unused.
If this had been packaged as a traditional wallpaper, the homeowner would have had the option of purchasing only three bolts / rolls.
I will note that it’s unusual to get three strips out of a bolt that is 24″ wide as we have here. Usually you get only two strips. But Milton & King’s rolls are 33′ long instead of the standard 27′. With the way the pattern repeat worked out relative to the exact height of the wall, I was able to squeeze out an additional strip of wallpaper from each roll.
Extra wallpaper isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It should be stored in a climate-controlled environment, in case of the need for repairs down the road.
The top photo shows a stain on the wallpaper that is probably related to a rain or hurricane event a few years ago.
Water stains (and also other substances, like rust, blood, ink, oil, tobacco, tar, cosmetics, and more) will bleed through wallpaper. So, before patching the area, it is imperative to use a stain blocker to seal the problem. My favorite is KILZ Original oil-based.
KILZ will seal off the stain all right. But wallpaper won’t stick to it. So, in the third photo, you see where I have primed over the KILZ with a wallpaper primer (tinted light blue, for visibility). It’s not necessary to prime the entire wall area to be patched, because this type of wallpaper will stick to itself with just plain old adhesive.
The striped pattern made for an easy repair. I took a straightedge and sharp razor blade and trimmed along the striped design, creating a long skinny patch. See fourth photo. You can also see the strip pasted and booked (folded pasted-side-to-pasted-side).
Once that sat and relaxed for a few minutes, I took it to the wall and appliquéd it over the damaged area, going the full height.
There was a very slight color difference between the paper that had been on the wall for 20 years and the paper that had been in a dark closet. Had I placed the white area of the patch next to the white area on the existing paper on the wall, the color difference would have been noticeable. But trimming along the blue stripe gave the eye a logical stopping point, and so the color difference is not detectable.
In the finished photo, you would never guess there had been anything amiss with this wall.
I used this same technique to patch over the bug-bite holes in yesterday’s post.
And another good reminder that it’s always best to order a little extra wallpaper, in case of the need for repairs later. Store the paper in a climate-controlled space … not the garage or attic.
The wallpaper is by Schumacher, and appeared to be an old-school pulp paper material.
Whoops! Somehow this vertical line got printed into a bolt of wallpaper. This ruined a full strip. Luckily, I always measure to include a little extra, so we had enough paper to finish the job.
I admit … When the homeowner first emailed her selection to me, I wasn’t crazy about the design. But once it started covering the first walls of the home’s entry – boy did I start to see her vision. It is stunning. And it’s one of those patterns that looks even better in person.
It’s a sort of a wide, scratchy stripe. The homeowner says it reminds her of feathers.
I spent a lot of time with math and engineering, and in the end was able to balance / center this pattern not just on the first wall with the front door (2nd photo), but on two other walls with doors, as well as this widest wall (1st photo). And I eliminated a noticeable kill point (no photo).
This wallpaper pattern “Plume” is by Cole & Son, and is on a non-woven backing. This means that it does not expand when wet with paste, plus there is no booking time, so you can paste it and hang right away – or you can paste the wall. I’m glad I pasted the material, because walls in this room were pretty wonky, and softening the paper by pasting it made it easier to manipulate it to match up with the crooked walls.
Non-wovens are also designed to strip off the wall easily, cleanly and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate.
I did encounter a few minor printing defects. But we had enough extra paper to work around them.
When you go around a corner, you (usually) never wrap the full wallpaper strip around a corner. Instead, you split your strip horizontally so it will wrap around the corner a teeny bit (1/16” – 1/8” ). See top photo.
The next piece overlaps that by a hair. This means that you naturally lose a smidgeon of the pattern.
In this room, the walls were not plumb (which is true in virtually every house in Houston). So at the top of the wall, the amount of overlap was a negligible 1/16”. But by the time you got to eye level, the overlap was more like 3/8”. That’s enough to throw the pattern match off significantly. See second photo. And this was in a very noticeable corner, next to the vanity.
If I have an extra bolt of paper, I will have a few extra strips. Then I can cut a brand new strip, split it vertically, and make the pattern match pretty close to perfectly. (Sorry, no pic of the finished corner, which, BTW, did look perfect. 🙂 )
When you wallpaper a room and reach a corner, you cut each strip of paper vertically, and then wrap a teeny bit of the paper around each corner. The next strip is replumbed and then overlapped on top of that teeny wrapped sliver.
This helps accommodate uneven corners or walls, it keeps the paper from twisting out of plumb, and it prevents any gaps or wall from showing in the corners. But, because some of the design is covered up in the overlap, it also distorts the pattern. That’s just how it goes in wallpaper hanging, and sometimes you notice the mis-match, and sometimes you don’t.
However, I like corner pattern matches to be as near to perfect as they can be. It is possible to get the pattern to match much better – but it takes a little extra paper.
If there is enough paper, I will discard the cut strip that will overlap and cover up some of the pattern, and cut a fresh strip, matching the pattern as exactly as possible. As you see in the photos, the pattern matches perfectly in both the right and left corners. (Note that corners are not always plumb or square, so it’s not always possible to get an exactly perfect pattern match.)
Another reason why it’s always good to buy a little extra wallpaper.
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