Affordable Version of Trendy Wallpaper Pattern

Accent wall in this guest bathroom in the Houston Heights has been smoothed and primed, and is ready for wallpaper.

Schumacher makes a popular version of this design called Queen of Spain. Rebecca Atwood makes something very similar named Dashes. Both of those are expensive brands, and the papers require hand-trimming, as well as other special installation techniques. The Queen comes in an unwieldly 54″ width.

This option by A Street Prints , though, is very similar but much lower in price. I prefer this pattern, too, because it’s not as ” stripy ” as the other brands. The name is Rune Charcoal Brushstrokes.

This is a non-woven material, and can be hung via the paste-the-wall method.

As I like to say – for every high-end company making a cool pattern that is costly and also difficult to install, there is someone else making a knock-off that is more affordable and of better quality.

Hand Trimming off the Selvedge Edge of Wallpaper

Some wallpapers, particularly the higher-end brands, come with an unprinted selvedge edge, much like fabric. This needs to be trimmed off so the pattern will match when the wallpaper strips are butted together on the wall.

Here you see how I am using my 6′ straightedge and a sharp new razor blade to remove this selvedge.

Wallpaper Photos in Cottage Journal Magazine, Summer 2020

This issue is all about coastal living, hence the blue, sand, and fog hues, and nautical and beach accessories.

The second photo makes me envision floating fronds of seaweed. It’s called “Priano,” by Serena & Lily, a pattern that I love and a manufacturer that I like a lot. I have hung it many times.

The third photo is “Dashes,” which looks like watercolor daubs made a paintbrush. Note how it calls up images of ocean waves. It’s by Rebecca Atwood, also a good quality paper, and which also I have hung a few times. Although it is higher-end and requires hand-trimming and other special installation techniques. I have seen similar designs by other, more approachable brands.

Fourth photo – seagulls.

Next photo – Cheery flowers on a backdrop to a small home bar. This pattern is also by Serena & Lily.

Last photo – if you look at the top right of the picture, covering the walls of the landing at the top of the stairs, you can see an upbeat, open air feeling, red & blue floral pattern.

Trimming and Trash

Hand-trimming the selvedge off untrimmed wallpaper sure makes a lot of trash.

This is paper (not vinyl or non-woven or grasscloth), so these scraps can go in the recycling bin.

From Fussy Victorian to Serene Home Office

Originally, this front bedroom in a 1925 bungalow in the Houston Heights was wallpapered in a dark green and red floral. It was lovely, and went beautifully with the home’s vintage vibe.

But the new homeowners (who have lived here many years, but are just now getting around to decorating this room) want to use this room as a home office, and they wanted something lighter and more modern. In the top photo, you see me stripping off this floral paper.

They were considering grasscloth, but, after reading my warnings about that product (see the page link to the right), they decided to avoid the color variations, staining, and fragility of that material, and instead went with a sort of faux grasscloth – this textured vinyl in a silvery grey color.

The color of the new paper goes perfectly with the gray paint on the woodwork. The paper has vertical lines in a striped pattern, as well as subtle horizontal shading that mimic real grasscloth, but in a more controlled and pleasing way. The commercial-grage vinyl is thick and durable, and will withstand bumps, splashes, and stains way better than most other types of wallcoverings.

On my end, though, the vinyl material was very difficult to work with. It is thick and stiff, and it is on an Osnaburg woven fabric backing, which is much like canvas. It takes a really sharp razor blade and a lot of strength to cut through it.

And because it is so thick, it’s very difficult to get it pressed up tightly against woodwork – so when you trim against the ceiling, doors, or baseboard, it’s very likely to get a gap that lets the wall behind it show. I have a special trim guide that makes a “fat cut,” which helps eliminate that gap.

Because the wallcovering is made of vinyl, it traps moisture behind it, so when the paste behind it dries, there is nowhere for the moisture to go, so you get off gassing – which is a nice way of saying that the paper “burps” and creates bubbles. I had to continually go back and chase bubbles out of the drying paper.

The design has a textured raised vertical stripe pattern. I had cut my first several strips with the intention to start hanging. Then I started measuring the wall, plotting the layout, and counting stripes. They were not laying out properly across the wall. After studying the paper’s pattern for a while, I realized that the stripes on the ends of the paper would not be spaced correctly – unless paper was trimmed off the edges of the wallpaper strips.

By removing 2.5″ from the edge, the stripes would be spaced correctly. I could trim this 2.5″ off, using my work table, a ruler, and my 6′ straightedge.

But the manufacturer’s trimming roller had left a slight beveled edge where it cut the paper. Since my hand-cut edge would be straight up, you would see an odd junction where my straight cut met against the manufacturer’s beveled cut at each seam.

So the only option for a very smooth seam was for me to trim some off both edges of the wallpaper. This worked out to 1.5″ off one side and 1″ off the other. Which was complicated further by the fact that some of the bolts of wallpaper were 1/4″ – 1/2″ narrower than others. So much for quality control at the factory!

But what this meant to me was that I had to carefully measure the width of each bolt of paper, compare that to the rhythm of the stripes crossing the paper horizontally, and determine how much to trim off each edge, in order to have the stripes be spaced correctly across the room.

In real life, most people are not going to notice a spacing difference of 1/2,” or even 1.” Especially in a room with very dim lighting and tons of shadows, and a pattern that is difficult to see in the first place.

But since I had to trim the paper’s edges anyway, it just made sense to trim it so that the spacing of the stripes fell as perfectly spaced as possible.

Try as hard as you may, hand-trimming wallpaper, especially thick, heavy, fabric-backed vinyl, is not as accurate as what they do at the factory. Thus there is always the potential for slight gaps or overlaps at the seams. With a thin paper, it’s possible to stretch and manipulate the material to make a good seam. But with this thick vinyl, I expected to see these gaps and overlaps. However, I was amazed that the vinyl was more malleable than expected – every single seam melted together perfectly.

Although the specs said that the trimmed paper would be 25″ – 26″ wide, by the time both edges were trimmed off and the stripes spaced as they should be, the paper was actually only 24″ wide (give or take an extra 1/4″ or so). Lose 2″ on each of eight strips going across a wide wall … and that can screw up your engineering of the wall and your plans of the number of strips needed and how many bolts of paper will be required.

All of this fiddlin’ and futzin’ took a lot of time, and I was only able to trim and hang paper on two walls each day. So, with prepping the walls and hanging the paper in this … it was something like a 16 single roll room… it took me a full three days. Which is what I had planned on, so we stayed right on schedule.

There was no brand name, so I don’t know the manufacturer, but the label said “JL 8008.” This commercial-grade paper is available in the 27″ width (which is what I can work with) or the wider 54″ (which is more for commercial settings). It was bought from my favorite source for good quality, product knowledge, expert service, and competitive price – 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.

Hand-Trimming Jill Malek Elephant Wallpaper

Digital Image

Digital Image

This Jill Malek wallpaper came with a selvedge edge, just like most fabrics. See the first photo. The edges had to be trimmed off before the paper could go up.

In the second photo, I am using my 6′ straight edge and a sharp, new razor blade to trim off this selvedge.

It’s important that this be done carefully and precisely, so that the pattern matches correctly, and so that the seams will butt nicely with no gapping or overlapping. This process is tedious and time consuming.

Many of the higher-end brands furnish their paper in this way.