Please see yesterday’s post for the “before” photo. Here’s the master bedroom suite all finished. There’s a dramatic feature / accent wall behind the headboard with Rifle Paper ‘s beloved Peacock pattern . On the remaining three walls is Rifle Paper ‘s Garden Party Trellis . RiRight side of the room. The homeowner is a single gal , and she wanted her master bedroom to be a relaxing retreat , but with a distinct feminine edge . Well – here you’ve got it!! Left side of the room. Look here, and at the photo above, and you’ll see how nice this uniformity looks. It was tricky! See subsequent blog post for info on how I did this. Window wall – which took me five hours, BTW! She’s going to add window treatments that will be feminine – but the exact choice remains to be unveiled.I pulled some tricks to get the flowers centered down the middle of the window columns. See a following post to see how I did this. Pattern nicely centered on closet wall.
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Another nicely centered section of wall. Close-up. This pattern is just fun. I like to say that it looks like the flowers are smiling . Closer-up. The homeowner loved the ” column ” look of the vertical pattern . The pattern is called Garden Party Trellis , and is a companion to the very popular original Garden Party made by this company Rifle Paper . Which is made by York. Many Rifle Papers are printed on the non-woven / paste the wall material, which has many advantages – stain-resistant, dimensionally-stable , strong, strips off the wall easily and in one piece when you redecorate later. But this turned out to be a traditional paper type wallpaper – still good stuff, but a different material that calls for different installation techniques and time frame. I will note that the website stated that this was a nonwoven substrate . I encountered this conflicting information several times lately, so, despite what the on-line specs say, be prepared for any type of install scenario. This is a new home in the Rice Military area of Houston.
The entire bedroom is to be wallpapered . Originally, all the walls were a soft sage green . The homeowner wants the room to be a sort of retreat . Here the walls are primed and ready for wallpaper . Done! What a fun pattern . Peacock is very popular. At first the homeowner wanted this on all four walls. But I mentioned that the circular movement of the design could be overwhelming all the way around the room. So she opted to put the bold pattern on just this feature wall, and chose something quieter for the remaing three walls. IPositioning the first strip . I plotted to have the peacock fall down the center of the wall, so it will be balanced nicely behind the headboard . Note that the center of the peacock isn’t perfectly in the center of the wallpaper, so I had to position the strip a little off-center on the wall, so the peacock’s body would hit the center point . Because this is a dark paper and sometimes the wall peeks out from between the seams , I’ve striped black paint under where the seams will fall. Not too heavy, though, because you want the wallpaper primer to still be able to do its job, part of which is to be grabbing and holding the seams down. I use a heat gun to get the paint to dry quickly. I just use acrylic craft paint from the hobby store ( Texas Art Supply , which is close to me). I daub some paint on a scrap of sponge , dip it in a small amount of water (in the Gatorade bottlecap) to dilute it a bit, and then run it down the wall, using the light beam from my laser level as a guide. I also use pastel chalk to color the white edges of the wallpaper, so they are not visible . Be sure that what you use is chalk and has no oil … oil will stain wallpaper and other surfaces (think potato chips on a paper napkin). This Rembrandt brand is oil-free. Apply from the back, getting color on the edges only, and not on the surface. This is a non-woven / paste the wall material. It’s strong and durable and stain-resistant . In addition, it will strip off the wall easily and in one piece when you redecorate, leaving no damage to the wall. installer Houston
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 .
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 .Â
I’m fixin’n to hang faux grasscloth on this accent / headboard wall in a master bedroom in the Spring Branch area of Houston. The textured wall has been skim-floated , sanded smooth , primed , and is ready for wallpaper . The material is 20.75″ (20 and 3/4″) wide . So here I’m measuring off how many strips of wallpaper I’ll need. I’ve counted out seven strips across the wall, and have come to my last (8th) strip. Look at my pencil mark – it’s at 21.” Remember that the paper is 20 3/4″ wide. This means that, to cover that last, scant 1/4″ width , I’ll have to use a ninth strip. Which will be a whole 9′ high strip that’s 20.75″ wide. Useing a 1/4″ wide strip off a 9′ long length leaves us with a whole lot of waste – paper / square footage just going into the trash. This is, again, why you should not purchase wallpaper based on square footage. It’s more a matter of determining how many strips you will need – factoring in the pattern repeat, etc. Even better , have the wallpaper installer make a site – visit and calculate for you. Going a step further … Since this is a (faux) grasscloth and has not pattern match , the seams will all be visible . So we try to balance the panels on the wall. Meaning, the wall will look better with panels of equal-widths, instead of, for instance, eight panels at 21″ wide and one at 1/2″. For the record, it also looks better to not have a seam fall at dead-center on the wall. Better to have that center panel straddle the mid-point. With this particular install, that’s what I chose to do. I took the first (let’s just call it 21″ wide for ease) … I took the first 21″ wide panel and used my laser level to line it up so 10 1/2″ fell on either side of the center line on the wall. So, this first panel was straddling the center line. From there, I used full-width (21″) panels one either side. Until I got to the last panel on the left, and the last one on the right. These two ended up each being about 15″ wide. So I had seven panels that were 21″ wide, and then two flanking on either side that were 15″ wide. This gave the wall a nice, balanced, uniform look. Yes, I could have hand-trimmed each strip to 19″ wide or whatever the math would have worked out to. But my option was simpler, faster, maintained uniformity between the majority of the panels, as well as uniform width on the two outer panels, eliminated the worry of gaps at the seams due to unevenly trimmed rigid vinyl goods, and the 6″ width difference wasn’t very noticeable. And, also, since this was a faux grasscloth and color variations were minimized, you could hardly see the seams, nor the width of the panels, anyway. From 5′ away, this wall looked perfectly homogeneous .
Before. I’ve skim-floated the textured wall , sanded it smooth , wiped off the residual dust , and then primed with Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime wallpaper primer . Now we’re ready for wallpaper !Done! Just a bit of texture , and a little neutral color to add some warmth to this large , mostly-grey , master bedroom . Oh – and some subtle sparkle . See following photos . It looks like real grasscloth . But it’s a faux! To help these homeowners avoid the disappointing color variations and low durability of real grasscloth , I encouraged them to consider textured vinyl products that recreate the look and texture of the real stuff , but without the drawbacks. Please click and read my link to info about grasscloth on the right of this page. Real grasscloth , and the fauxes , as well, have visible seams (very minimal issue with the fauxes). So it’s important to balance the strips , so you have equal widths of panels as you traverse the wall. In other words, you don’t want five 36″ wide strips and then one 20″ wide strip. And you’ll want to center those strips on the wall. Position them so you have an equal number of equally-sized strips on both the right and left sides of the wall. Another design concept is to not have a seam fall down the center of a wall. Rather, it just feels better aesthetically to have the strip straddle the center line . Here I’m hanging my first strip, having already calculated where the center of the wall is, the center of the wallpaper panel is, measured over to where the seam should fall, and then placed the red line of my laser level so it will guide where I should butt the edge of the wallpaper against. That’s my Bosch laser level gizmo sitting on the top of the headboard, shooting its red light beam onto the wall. Another shot. I’m using the vertical light beam ; the horizontal beam is not relevant in this install . This textured vinyl material does a pretty darned good job of recreating the look and feel of real grasscloth . This photo is from about 6′ away.A closer look. Note the bit of silver shimmer in the background , that adds a luxe look to the overall effect .The wallcovering is by York , one of my preferred brands . It’s on a non-woven backing , which has many advantages over traditional paper-papers. It’s breathable , stain-resistant , will strip off the wall easily and in one piece with minimal / no damage to the wall when it’s time to redecorate . It can be hung by the paste-the-wall method (which is what I did today) or the paste the paper technique (which I use most of the time). I felt that the seams laid down better and had less ” rebound ” edge curl from factory trimming than many of the heavier vinyl faux non-woven backed materials I’ve worked with. In other words, I liked this product pretty much! this particular material was also thin and flexible , so it was easy to work with and manipulate if needed. The home is in the Spring Branch area of Houston.
Including right here on the cover! And a real coup! … A magazine that’s pretty much dedicated to the all-white or all-grey trend in decorating, as well as minimalism … it’s so exciting to see some pattern and color in the ” farmhouse ” themed homes. Let’s take a look …Textured grasscloth behind bookshelves in a living room .Two-tone classic toile on one wall as a background to a stairwell . It warms up the space, without hitting you in the face. Soft , cloud – like feel behind this credenza . Look carefully right above the baskets , and you’ll see an overlapped seam. Some commercial murals are hung like this, as well as the very popular patterns by Spoonflower , which is a budget-friendly and DIY – able , good quality material and brand . (But ONLY their ” prepasted smooth ” option. Do NOT get the ” traditional pebble ” nor their ” peel and stick . “More of the toile pattern , in the entry , with batten board wainscoting and a chair rail , in a mud room . Also called rear back door entry . : )Floral pattern in the laundry room . I’m getting lots of queries for wallpaper in laundries … must be trending right now!Soft two-tone floral in small bathroom .Textured grasscloth behind desk in home office .Apologies for the sideways image … WordPress used to be easy to use, and I could correct this. But they “upgraded” their program and made many, many features much more difficult to work with. I tried tutorials on how to fix this, but after reading and watching tons of info and videos, I gave up. It used to be just one click ! Anyway, note the cheery breakfast room. Colorful without being overwhelming . Closer picture. Very innovative use of floral pattern with subdued color around the archway / entry to another breakfast nook . Note that the back of the nook also wears a textured wallpaper . Sorry for the out-of-order picture … another frustration from the “upgraded” WordPress Editor . This gives an idea of what the afore-mentioned breakfast area looked like pre-wallpaper. The magazine didn’t mention a brand, but this sure looks like one of Serena & Lily ‘s designs . Of course, when one company makes a popular pattern , many other companies make their own versions . These days, usually you see pattern on the accent wall behind the headboard . So it’s a little unusual to see wallpaper on all four walls of this master bedroom . But it works, because the pattern is simple and the colors are kept to only two , so the overall feel is calming , rather than busy . Fooled me! I thought this headboard accent wall was done in tile – but it’s wallpaper !The same paper on a kitchen cabinet .
Before. Primed and ready for wallpaper . Done. This image could be positioned so that the palm leaves push up from the floor , or, as in the photo , they hang down from the ceiling. This is a popular look right now, and very fitting to an accent / headboard wall in a bedroom . Done. The homeowner bought one mural from Russia before she and I consulted , so it would be difficult to get another. In addition, the mural images don’t continue from right to left, so you can’t place two murals next to each other and have palm leaves continue unbroken . The manufacturer’s picture on-line is misleading, too, because it’s been Photoshopped to look like it fills the whole wall with tropical fronds . As you can see, the actual mural is a lot narrower than the wall, plus shorter by about a foot and a half. The mural is placed slightly off-center on the wall , because the homeowner wanted it centered on the bed , which sits a little to the right of center . Plans are still incubating, but she’ll probably have wooden panels or trim placed on the wall flanking the mural as well as beneath it, to give a finished look. All in all, I think the room looks dreamy !Close-up .The material is vinyl and has a woven fabric – like texture . The mural came in four panels, each about 3′ wide by about 8.5′ high . Here I am laying them out so I can get measurements and to be sure they go up in the right sequence. There were a lot of these little black specks of a chalk – like substance on the back , and even some on one area of the front . Did I tell you this came from Russia ?! Sorry, no brand name, but this was thin and very flexible and pretty nice to work with . This is a popular design concept , and many companies are making similar patterns . Try RebelWalls.com , which is super quality and really good customer service, plus tons of designs and images to cover your walls .
Headboard wall skim-floated smooth and primed – ready for wallpaper. Having the foliage hang from the ceiling means you see more of it as the leaves and blossoms fall and fold around the bed. Moody and brooding colors make this perfect for a master bedroom. It looks like it was painted on canvas or burlap, or possibly like you are looking through a window screen out onto a dark forest. There are some very expensive versions of ” upside down over-scaled dark floral ” patterns. rebelwalls.com makes it affordable for any budget, and with a DIY friendly, easy-to-install non-woven paste-the-wall material. Murals are custom-sized to your wall(s), which is more tricky than it sounds, so be sure the paperhanger calculates dimensions before you order. Rebel Walls sells mostly murals, but they also sell traditional rolled goods, too. They can even create custom-made designs. The home is in the Bellaire area of Houston.
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