Just above my finger, you can see a bit of a green line. A previous installer must have used ink to mark his plumb line . Problem with this is, as you can see, ink will work its way through many substances, including wallpaper , and leave a stain on the surface. In this case, I removed the old wallpaper and then skim-floated the wall to smooth it. As you can see, the ink, which is decades old (original wallpaper dates to the early ‘90’s ) is still active and has bled through the smoothing compound / joint compound . If I were to prime and then hang wallpaper over this, it would work its way through both my primer and the homeowner’s new wallpaper. So I’m sealing it off. Above the green line you can see a strip of stain blocker brushed (actually daubed on with my finger) over the stain. I like to use KILZ Original oil-based stain blocker. BIN shellac-based is another good product. Don’t believe the claims on cans of water-based alternatives – nothing works as well to block stains as KILZ or BIN. The fumes can be strong, and KILZ can make you high, so ventilate the room and/or wear a respirator when you apply this stuff. Other substances / stains that can bleed through paint and wallpaper are tobacco , water , rust , marker , crayon , blood , oil , grease , food , hand prints , cosmetics , hair products , and so forth.
Accent wall before, textured wall has been smoothed , primed , and is ready for wallpaper . Hot air balloons , pastel colors , works for boy or girl , and will grow with the child as he/she ages . Here is the bold white child’s headboard that will be placed against the wall . Coordinates beautifully with the other three walls , which are painted a dusky pink . The wallpaper is by Caitlin Wilson , and is made by York . It’s in the Sure Strip line, which is a thin , pre-pasted material that is water-activated and easy to hang / install . It’s also designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece when you redecorate . I like this stuff a lot. The home is in the West U area of Houston .
This is the current wallpaper, and I’m to put a new paper in this powder room. For various reasons, this paper cannot be stripped off the wall , so I’m prepping the walls to be able to hang the new paper on top of it . Normally, my favorite Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime will seal this effectively enough. But – hard to see in this photo – but this existing paper looks dirty to me. Some of that is due to the mottled look of the pattern / colorway . But I’m seeing tan discoloration , and I think it’s coming from under the wallpaper . This home was built in the early ‘90’s , and in a neighborhood where , through stripping off many old wallpapers in order to prep for new installation , I’ve noticed that someone working in that area and era used what we call clay-based paste . This paste is made using actual clay – i.e. dirt – and has a reddish color . I believe that this red clay paste is able to work its way through wallpaper, and creep onto the surface, causing a subtle “dirty” cast to appear on the wallpaper. Once you strip the old wallpaper off the wall, the wall can then be washed , and hopefully you’ll get all the clay paste off . But usually, no matter how much you scrub, residue will remain. I fear that that residue will work its way through the new wallpaper, as well. Additionally, the most severe stains are in the vicinity of the toilet – housekeeper splashing cleaning agents? or little boys with bad aim ?? Yes, most homeowners will never notice this, especially since it can take years to show up. And the paper I’ll be hanging is black , so it’s highly unlikely that any discernable stains will become visible . But I get a little anal about wanting jobs to look perfect. So I like to use a stain blocker , which will ensure that no discoloring elements will work their way through . My two favorites are KILZ Original , oil-based primer . KILZ is wonderful, unparalleled stuff. But it does have strong fumes , so you have to ventilate the room thoroughly and also wear a chemical respirator while applying it, to avoid becoming “high.” i.e. “sick” My other option is BIN , which is shellac – based . This is also an excellent stain blocker , and has a strong smell , but nothing that will kill your brain cells . Since my current clients have little kids, I opted for the BIN . Unless you want to go through a LOT of paint thinner and mess , you can’t easily wash oil-based or shellac-based liquids out of your roller cover or brush es . So I plan to use disposable rollers and brushes. This doesn’t mean cheap rollers and brushes – it just means that I factor in that these will be used once and then thrown away. Speaking of factoring in costs – the gallon of BIN was $70 (and that was a reduced price due to dented can). The KILZ was $40 , but I would have had to purchase a new respirator and cartridges , which would have added an additional $40 – some of the respirators went up to $70. March 2023 prices . All this needs to be considered when figuring up the price for doing a wallpaper job. I’ll also note that these products can be difficult to source – my local hardware store, which typically has stock even when larger outfits are out , had only one can of KILZ and one scratch-and-dent can of BIN . Whichever I would have chosen, I sure got lucky. Note that these stain blockers are formulated to block lots of nasty stuff – water stains , blood , rust , wood sap / knot holes , ink , tar , grease , crayon , lipstick , cooking stains , marker , Sharpies , etc. Back to BIN…. It’s very watery and runny and drippy . So you really have to cover the floors and baseboards , as well as countertops , toilets, etc. Microfiber roller covers help a lot to minimize splatters . Roll slowly and in an upward motion . Oh – additional plus … both BIN and KILZ dry quickly, so you can apply it and then move to your next step in less than an hour. Besides the shadow-y paste residue , this room has other issues . Here, someone used ink pen to mark placement of the hooks for the powder room mirror . Eeek! Ink will bleed through paint and wallpaper even faster than clay paste residue will. Here you can see one coat of the BIN applied – but the ink seems to have been “resurrected” and is actually enlarging and spreading, and bleeding through the stain blocker . Here I’ve spot-primed with a heavier coat of BIN , and that appears to be holding the nasty ink at bay . Note that wallpaper paste will not adhere to oil-based products like KILZ , and probably not to shellac , either, because it dries kind of glossy. So whichever of these primers you choose to use, you will need to top-coat with a primer formulated for use under wallpaper – and that will adhere to the stain blocker. Tomorrow, I’m going to follow up with Roman Pro 977 , as mentioned above .
Pretty birds , nicely spaced branches , and lovely colors for this master bedroom in the Heights neighborhood of Houston . This accent / headboard wall is even prettier from a distance . Here’s the wall before. The other three walls are painted a complementary grey .From a distance. I’ve got one more strip to hang , on the far right. Close up . The background is silver with a little gloss to it, but not so much as to be glitzy or garish . I mean, a guy sleeps here, too. So it’s gotta be a bit subdued . This wallpaper is made by Graham & Brown. G&B is a good quality , mid-price range company. Like most of their papers, this is a non-woven / paste the wall material . Much of G&B’s paper is thin and flexible . But this particular pattern came on a thick and stiff substrate . N-W’s contain a minimum 20% polyester content, and I suspect this has a higher percentage . The stuff is somewhat akin to fiberglass . Look closely at the bottom of the photo, and you can see the fibers . This makes it good, and easy for DIY ‘ers , on simple installations like accent walls / feature walls . But it can be trickier when you have to trim around obstacles like windows , decorative moldings , vanities , toilets , and the like. Non-woven wallpapers are designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate , with minimal or no damage to your wall (assuming proper prep was done before installation ). A much better choice than peel & stick .
Before. Walls painted with a deep, murky teal blue. I’ve measured the width of the border and then applied my wallpaper primer 1/4″ narrower than the border. That’s the white you see around the top of the room. I love the way the teal / blue walls coordinate with the green in the border (a tall , vintage border like this is called a frieze ). Painting the walls the same color as the border would have been too much, IMO. Plus, you can never get the color exactly perfectly the same – so it looks like what I call a “near-miss.” Better to opt for complimentary colors , as this homeowner did. The color in some of the leaf detail also coordinates with the avocado green in the adjoining living room – you can see a snatch of this color at the far left of this photo. The camera is making this color brighter and greener than it actually is, but you get an idea of the design . Once the Victorian era faded away, the Arts & Crafts movement came to be in the very early 1900’s , with less fru-fru and more nature , clean lines , whimsy , and stylized designs . The home also has furniture and decor that hark back to this time period . The pattern is called Apple Tree Frieze , and comes in several colorways . The manufacturer is Bradbury & Bradbury , in California. They are the go-to company for 19th & 20th century historic patterns . Delicious stuff on their website! Bradbury can be tricky to install, so not for novices . Different colorways can call for different adhesives / pastes , so be sure to read the instructions before starting . The bungalow home in the Houston Heights dates to 1920 (possibly earlier) which is just smack in the middle of the Arts & Crafts decorating style . I hung another period-correct border in this room for this family 10 years ago. Now they’ve done some updating with new colors and, of course – a new wallpaper border frieze . It was a pleasure to be back and help bring new life to the place!
Oh, my! – I hung lots of these chintz florals, ” satin ” look (the design of the dark green at the bottom of the wall), and dark colors back in the ’90’s . Sure enough – this home was built and wallpapered in 1994. IIt’s still a good look, IMO, and the homeowner still likes it. But she’s just gotten tired of it. So – time for an update ! She also decided to eliminate the chair rail , so the new wallpaper will go ceiling to floor . Here you see some damage to the drywall where the chair rail molding was removed . What a change! Now the room’s look is quiet and fresh . The buffet , topped with a decorative mirror , will go on this wall . That’s why I centered the pattern in between the windows , so it will fall evenly on either side of the furnishings . I also plotted so that a full “Moroccan lantern” (that’s what this style of trellis pattern is called), would balance out between the crown molding and the window molding. There were several of these 12.5″ high areas all around the room, so this placement of whole “lantern” motifs gave the room a pleasing look. It also worked out that the lanterns were evenly placed and kept whole between the crown molding and the baseboard. See the second following photo to see what I’m talking about As a note – just this one window wall took me about five hours to measure , calculate , and hang . Getting the pattern to go over, around, and under the two windows , and still line up and match correctly , took some time and futzing. The material was thick and stiff , and a bit tricky to fit into corners and trim around the decorative window molding . In the foreground you see my work table area . The homeowner has let me put protective padding on her dining room table and then set my work table on that. This saves space and allows plenty of room for my ladder and other tools as I work around all four walls. So that I could center the pattern on this wall , I had to start hanging my first strip in the middle of the wall. I was lucky this time, that the pattern was centered exactly on the edge of the wallpaper roll . Sometimes (as in the one I did yesterday – see previous post ) the center of the design motif is a to the right or left of the edge of the wallpaper . This, naturally, means you’ve got to do more measuring and plotting and double-checking , to be sure the center of the design falls down the center of the wall . Back to the photo above … that dark block on the right side of my work table is my laser level. It’s shooting a perfectly plumb red line onto the wall. Here I’m lining up my first strip of paper butted against this red line . Switch topics … Back in 1994, the original installer did a very nice job of hanging the wallpaper. But … he didn’t prime the new drywall first. That lack of primer / protective layer means that the wallpaper will actually bond to the drywall. I tried, but was unable to get the existing wallpaper off . Eventually, you need to factor in time , damage to the wall , paste residue left on the wall, and take a different tac if called for. So I skim-floated over the seams , so they wouldn’t show under the new paper , and also floated over the damaged drywall where the chair rail had been removed . Sanded smooth , and then primed the patched areas as well as the original wallpaper, with Roman Ultra Prime Pro 977 . This stuff will adhere to the light acrylic (slick) surface of the original wallpaper, as well as protect it from moisture from my paste on the new wallpaper. ( Moisture could cause the underlying original wallpaper to expand , creating bubbles that will look bad, or loose areas that will pull away from the wall, creating a bubble or pocket.) My primer is also lightly pigmented, so it helps block out the dark color and busy pattern of the original wallpaper . This particular new wallpaper is quite opaque , but not all of them are, so a pigmented primer is important , IMO . Left corner of the buffet wall. Here you can see how the lantern motifs are placed between ceiling and floor. The background has a lightly mottled effect, that mimics grasscloth a bit, and also adds more depth and warmth than just a plain solid color . Been havin’ more than a fair share of defects lately, especially this week. This paper had on both front and back sides, incidences of these black flecks . They seemed to be maybe charcoal , so I wasn’t too worried about their black bleeding through to the surface , like ink or any oil-based substance will do. Most of them were embedded in the material itself, so could not be wiped off , nor dug out with a razor blade . Some I had to cut around and discard the affected paper. Others were so small as to not be noticeable once the paper was up on the wall and all the furniture and artwork was back in the room. There was also one 3′ section of wallpaper that had an odd streak or arc running across it. It wasn’t ink . It was more like some kind of compromise to the substrate . I noticed it was I was pasting the back of the paper . I turned it over and, sure enough, you could see it a little on the surface. (see photo in previous post) It’s the kind of thing that was subtle, but would catch your eye when looking at the wall from a distance . It was minor , but I discarded that strip . Good thing I have the homeowners purchase a little extra wallpaper . The manufacturer is Designer Wallcoverings , which is a good quality brand (aside from the printing defects I described earlier ). It was a non-woven / paste the wall material , which is pretty user-friendly . It will strip off the wall easily and in one piece when you redecorate . Stain-resistant , and ” breathable ” in humid conditions . The home is in the West University neighborhood of Houston . Dining room installer
Something smells like moth balls ! Some high-end hand screened wallpapers are printed with what we call stinky inks . These inks often fight with the substrate they’re printed on. The backing of the wallpaper will absorb moisture from the paste and expand , but the ink on the surface won’t, so you end up with what we call waffling or quilting . Wrinkles in the wallpaper in between the printed inked areas. Do a Search here to see photos and read more about this. You can reduce or eliminate this by evening out the moisture between front and back. It’s as simple as taking a very lightly damp sponge and wiping the front printed surface of the wallpaper. Then paste the back as normal , book (fold pasted side to pasted side), roll up, place in black trash bag for a few minutes. Now the wallpaper should be relaxed , and the wrinkles should be evened out . Now you’re ready to hang wallpaper ! This pattern is called Les Touches and is by Brunschwig & Fils , a higher-end designer type brand .
This wallpaper in a Houston Heights townhome’s breakfast area was hung by “the contractor’s guy ” and he ran into some problems. First, I suspect the wall had not been adequately coated with a primer designed for use under wallpaper . This may be a large part of why the paper has come loose from the wall in places, and shrunk and gaps at the seams. The wallpaper is an old-fashioned British pulp material , which is quite different from the non-woven material that this company usually prints on. If the installer was not familiar with hanging a pulp, yes, he can have a tough time of it. There are other issues that the homeowner is unhappy with, such as tears, slices, patches, and, of course, these un-stuck seams. I’ve posted more pics previously, if you can Search to find them. My task is to get the paper off and then prep the wall for hanging new material. Most of the paper pulled off the wall easily. But there were areas where the guy had used a stronger adhesive to try to hold the edges down. Those would not come off the wall without causing damage to the wall. So I pulled off the top, inked layer and left the paper backing on the wall. This stuff is porous and will bubble when coated with a water-borne primer , and with wallpaper wet with paste. So I sealed these areas – I sealed the entire wall, in fact – with Gardz (by Zinsser ). This stuff is pretty incredible. It’s a thin, watery primer / sealer that soaks into the surface and binds loose components together, then dries hard and solid . Latex paints and other water-based products (usually) won’t penetrate it, so won’t cause the underlying material to re-wet, expand , and bubble . Just a note … due to pandemic and other supply chain related shortages , Gardz has become difficult to find. This can was about 1/4 full and I had it sitting behind my trash can, intending for weeks to toss it out. Now I’m glad that I procrastinated! Once the Gardz sealer was dry, I skim-floated over it with joint compound , a.k.a. ” mud .” In most areas of the wall, my skim coat was as thin as possible, but I did have to make it much thicker over the areas with the paper backing stuck to the wall. I set up three fans , and also used my heat gun , to get the smoothing compound to dry. I like the Plus 3 version made by the Sheetrock company. It sands easily and doesn’t make too much air-borne dust. It took a couple of hours to dry. Then I sanded it smooth , vacuumed up the dust with my Shop Vac , used a damp sponge to get residual dust off the wall , and then let the wall dry once again.Finally I applied a coat of my favorite wallpaper primer, Pro 977 Ultra Prime by Roman. I used a paint roller to roll it on to the main areas, and an angled trim brush to cut in around the ceiling and moldings. Here is the wall all smoothed and primed . Originally I had planned to strip , prep , and hang this half-wall all in one day. But ended up the prep took more time than I anticipated (about 8 hours ) , so we’ll let the primer dry overnight and save the wallpaper installation for another day. The wallpaper pattern is called Strawberry Thief and is by the famous William Morris designer from the very early 1900’s . I’m sure seeing a surge in interest in his patterns, particularly this one. Do a Search to see other jobs I’ve done with it.
Most homes in the Houston area have textured walls. These bumps are unsightly under wallpaper, and also interfere with consistent adhesion. So I like to skim-float the walls with drywall joint compound (I use the Plus 3 version) and then sand them smooth. Sanding this stuff creates lightweight, powdery dust that sifts through the air and gets over everything. Homeowners tend to hate that. 🙂 So here I’ve created a ” tent ” out of painter’s plastic along the walls where I will be sanding. This creates a pretty darned effective barrier that prevents dust from getting into the rest of the room. Here’s the dust created by smoothing just the top 5′ of wall area. And my ShopVac to clean it all up. I find it easiest to let the dust fall onto the floor and even the carpet. It’s easy to vacuum dust up off these surfaces. Dropcloths and plastic tend to get sucked up into the vacuum hose, and the dust doesn’t come with it. I once tried protective self-adhesive plastic that’s made to cover carpet … but it was extremely difficult to unroll, plus, it was even more difficult to get back off the floor. I truly feared it would pull off the surface finish of the floor along with it. The vacuum gets most of the dust. But there is still a fine, invisible layer left on surfaces. So you need to take a damp rag and wipe the floor. I also vacuum the walls. After the visible dust is gone, it’s imperative that you take a damp sponge and wipe residual dust off the walls. You have to rinse the sponge frequently to get all the dust. If not, it’s like, as I like to say, it’s like flouring a cake pan – the wallpaper will kinda stick – but not really stick. Once the walls are perfectly dust-free and dry, follow up with a wallpaper primer. Then go and hang your wallpaper!
There is a vertical seam down the center of this picture. Look closely, and you will see that the strip of wallpaper on the right is darker than the strip on the left. The manufacturer didn’t keep the color of the ink consistent across the width of the paper. This is called shading or paneling. Even though the pattern of the horizontal hash-type lines matches across the seam, I thought the difference in color would be jarring to the eye. In the grand scheme of things, I believe that uniform color would be more important than a perfectly matched really tiny pattern. So I used a trick called reverse-hanging to bring an even color to the seam areas. That’s when you hang one strip right side up, and then hang the next strip upside down. What this accomplishes is to place the same side of the strip next to itself. That way, a darker area, for example, is next to a darker area, and your eye doesn’t notice any abrupt color difference. It’s a simple concept, but difficult to explain. This technique is usually used on solid textures or materials like grasscloth. I was able to get away with it on this patterned paper because the design was symmetrical whether it was right-side-up or up-side-down. From a short foot away from the wall, you can’t notice that the horizontal lines don’t line up perfectly.
The Wallpaper Lady's Blog 