Inexplicable Pattern Match

This happens not infrequently, and it’s puzzling to me. At the top of the wall, the pattern match drops down to the right.

Yet at the center of the wall it matches perfectly.

But get to the bottom of the wall and it drops again, but this time to the left.

Yes, some papers do stretch / expand when they get wet with paste. But that’s not the situation here, because this is A.) a non-woven material, which generally do not expand, and B.) every strip was treated the same way. In other words, if every strip is pasted, booked, and left to sit for the same length of time, ALL the strips should expand the same amount, right? And the pattern should match at the top, middle, and bottom. Right?

But even that argument doesn’t apply, because this, again, is a NW / non-expansion material, and, besides, I didn’t paste the wallpaper but pasted the wall instead. So the material had no chance to get wet or swollen with paste.

I believe this is a factory trimming issue. Somewhere along the line, the trimmers got off-track, or started trimming on the bias, just enough to throw off the pattern match.

In cases like this, the rule of thumb industry standard is to match the pattern as best as possible at eye level (middle of the wall) and let nature take its course, as they say, on the upper and lower sections.

Luckily this particular pattern only had one motif area that matched across the seams, and there were only three of those per the height of each strip. So the two slight mis-matches were both way above and below eye level, so not very noticeable.

This pattern is called Palm Leaves and is by Cole & Son . Other than this printing snafu, it’s a good quality wallpaper. See previous post

Unplumb Walls and Geometric Wallpaper Patterns

You usually don’t wrap a strip of wallpaper around an inside corner. You wrap 1/8″ around, slit the strip in two vertically, and then apply a new strip overlapping that 1/8″. The trick is getting the pattern of that new strip to match up with that on the original wall.
And it helps if the walls are straight and plumb.
Here I’ve done a great job of matching the pattern in the corner. This is the top 2/3 of the wall.

But, as you move down the wall, it becomes quite evident the wall isn’t plumb. In fact, this wall had an actual bow in it, so it wasn’t flat or straight, either. So it’s impossible to avoid a pattern mis-match like this.
The standard practice is to match the pattern at eye level. Then, as it moves up and down the wall, you’ve gotta accept any mis-matches that result.
In this case, we’re lucky that the new vanity will block most of this.
This is called Hick’s Hexagon and is by Cole & Son.

It’s Schumacher. So, Yeah – There Are Gonna Be Printing Defects.

Smudged pattern. Mis-aligned pattern.

Sometimes manufacturers will use tape to flag ” issues ” like a defect or a spliced piece. But there was nothing of note where this red tape had been placed. It was impossible to remove the tape without lifting the ink off the paper. So a full strip of wallpaper was wasted. This red tape popped up in two different bolts of paper.

In addition, I had another full length strip the was ruined by a small stain. It might have been overlooked, but it was going to fall right at eye level in an entryway. Also, the pattern was such that I could not pull any of my tricks, like cutting a flower out of scrap paper and pasting it over the stain.

Extra Paper Makes for Extra Nice Corners

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. 🙂 )

Wonky Walls = Mis-Matched Corners

When wallpaper turns an inside corner, you split the strip vertically and place the first half of the strip so that just a teeny tad wraps around the corner, and then you overlap the remaining strip into the corner, using a level to plumb this strip. This keeps all your subsequent strips nice and plumb, and running straight at the ceiling and floor lines (assuming that these lines are truly level).

But when walls and corners aren’t plumb, wallpaper patterns will get distorted. The rule of thumb is to match the pattern at eye level, and then let it fall as it will above and below that point.

This pattern is busy enough that the mis-match is not all that noticeable.

Over the Door Kill Point with a Stripe

Digital Image

The “kill point” is where you land your last strip of wallpaper. When it meets up against your first strip – which is usually in a corner – it almost always results in a mis-match of the pattern. And pattern mis-matches catch and jar the eye. So that’s why you try to hide the kill point in a corner or behind a door, or somewhere where it won’t be prominently displayed.

But this bathroom didn’t have a “hidden” corner where the mis-match would not be noticed. I was going to end up with two 8′ lengths of the wide white stripes closer to each other than they should have been.

So I decided to match the pattern correctly in the corner, and then move the kill point up and away from eye-level – to over the door.

On the right side of the photo, you see the stripes at their normal width. As you move to the left, though, there is one stripe that is not the same width. This is my kill point.

The thing is, even though that stripe is narrower than the others, it doesn’t scream at you; your eye passes right over it.

Ogee Petals Wallpaper Pattern in a Powder Room

Digital Image

Digital Image

Digital Image

Digital Image

Digital Image

Digital Image

Digital Image

“Ogee” means double continuous “S” pattern. This wallpaper pattern sure has them! It is also reminiscent of flower petals, and so has been called “Petals” in some of its incarnations. I hung the glass bead version a few months ago. https://wallpaperlady.wordpress.com/2016/10/30/swoopy-trellis-of-glass-beads-brightens-a-powder-room/ This no-bead paper was not as difficult, but it still was a tedious install.

My before shot disappeared, and so did my prep shot, so please just enjoy the pics of the finished project. Note the careful centering of the pattern on both the sink faucet. This was very time consuming, because I had to start with the strip to the left of the one over the sink, and carefully plot the width of the pattern and the rate of expansion of the wet paper; I won’t go into explaining it here, but I think it was well worth the 45 minutes it took to accomplish. The pattern is also centered nicely over the toilet.

The strip to the right of the mirror also took about 45 minutes, thanks to un-plumb walls, bowed walls, stiff unyielding paper, and more, in order to get the pattern to match at points both above and below the mirror, all the while keeping the right edge plumb, and straight enough for the next trip to be able to butt up against.

In the close-up shot, you see a slight pattern mis-match at the seams. The manufacturer had a mis-print issue, which was more noticeable in some rolls than others. I followed paperhanger protocol, and matched the pattern where it would be seen at eye-level, and I let points above and below fall out of match as they happened. Once the job was finished, I took some brown craft paint and a VERY tiny paint brush, and colored some of the mis-matched areas, to make them less noticeable to the human eye. It looked great.

I also ran a bead of clear caulk around the top of the backsplash, to prevent splashed water from being wicked up under the paper (which could cause curling).

This wallpaper pattern is by A-Street Prints, which is made by Brewster. I hung it in the powder room of a new home in the Meyerland neighborhood of Houston. It is a non-woven material, and it is meant that you paste the wall, rather than pasting the wallpaper.