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.
Originally, the wall was just a grey-tan. Now look how bold and exciting it is, with some strong color and an adventurous pattern! Baboons! – Who would ever think of putting them across a wall??!
This is one accent wall in a dining room in southwest Houston (Meyerland/Fondren Southwest). The home had flooded during Hurricane Harvey, and the couple had it raised 10′ and then refurbished. This dramatic dining room was the final touch!
The wallpaper pattern is “Savuti” in the Dark colorway, by Cole & Son. It is a sturdy non-woven material, and I used the paste-the-wall installation method.
I’m about to do a repair to some wallpaper that was damaged flooding during Hurricane Harvey here in Houston. Unfortunately, the left over wallpaper from the original installation was also exposed to the water and humidity of the flood. There is a little bit of water stain and mildew on the back of the paper.
This rendered the paper unusable, because both water stains and mildew will work their way through wallpaper (and paint and other surfaces), and will eventually show up on the printed side.
Luckily, there was enough left over paper for me to discard this stained area and then use undamaged paper for the repair.
Still not completely finished fixing major damage caused by the devastating flood of 2017, this young couple in the Pearland area of Houston has done virtually all the repairs themselves – and done a mighty fine job of it, too…. Way better than most of the work done by “professionals” that I have seen in “Harvey homes.”
With many details still unfinished, the homeowners wanted just one room that would be done. The lady of the house loves this navy and white fauna/botanical print by Schumacher. She envisioned it on just the back wall of the powder room – the room that everyone sees when walking through the first floor.
You get two strips of paper out of one double-roll bolt, and the wall was 2.5″ wider than two strips of paper. Since Schumacher is expensive, the homeowners decided not to buy another bolt of paper to cover those 2.5 inches, but instead to “float” two strips of paper in the middle of the wall, and then use their DIY skills to build a frame around it.
The frame will be painted a very dark blue. I hate to fall back on the overused term “pop,” but that is exactly what the blue frame will do … It will make the wallpaper pop against the white walls, and also stand out from other design features in the home.
Scroll back a few days and you will see my encounters with a very difficult navy and white paper, also by Schumacher. This one was totally different.
The bird design I worked with today was printed with good quality inks on a non-woven substrate. N-W’s have a degree of fiberglass in their content, and thus are “dimensionally stable.” Among other positive features, they do not expand, and thus you have no wrinkling or waffling or puckers.
This paper went up very nicely.
Although, in two of the photos, true to reputation, you can see printing defects. Just par for the course, if you buy a Schumacher product
When the homeowner saw the finished job, she almost broke down into tears – one room finally complete and pretty and all reminders of the flood gone.
It was an honor to help this couple get to this one small milestone.
This home in Kingwood (far northeast Houston) was damaged by flooding during Hurricane Harvey, so the bottom portion of the walls had to be torn out and replaced. The repaired laundry room was functional, but not very inviting.
This cheery pattern changed all that!
The light black pen & ink-like images on a white background add whimsy and really brighten the room. I don’t think anyone would mind spending time in here on Laundry Day!
The motifs remind me of dandelions that have died and dried, that you puff on to make a wish.
The wallpaper is by York, in their Sure Strip line, which is one of my favorites. It is a pre-pasted paper, and is designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate.
The homeowner wanted her powder room to be dark. The original paint was darker than the first photo shows (My two 100 watt light bulbs are washing the dark color out.). But stark, dark walls and ceiling can be claustrophobic, so she knew a little pattern would help create the effect she was going for.
This house in far-west Houston was redone after flooding from Hurricane Harvey. The contractor’s worker attempted to hang the wallpaper, but wasn’t making things look great.
The homeowner ordered new paper. This time around, her original color choice was discontinued, so she opted for the one you see in the photos. I say it was fortuitous. 🙂
I was called in to hang the new paper. After smoothing the very lightly textured walls and then priming, the paper went up nicely.
It was nice that York Wallcoverings printed this dark design on a dark substrate, instead of the typical white (see photo). That helps prevent white showing at the seams, if the paper should shrink a tad as it dries.
I really like the pattern. It’s fresh and has a bit of whimsy – sort of like a dance in the forest.
And the pattern gives the room a whole lot more character, and it’s definitely not boxy or claustrophobic anymore.
Go BOLD or go home – this homeowner is stickin’ with bold.
This home in the Bellaire neighborhood of Houston was flooded during Hurricane Harvey. The homeowner loved the wallpaper in the powder room, and after the renovation, she wanted the same thing.
One disappointment is that the original installer had done a poor job. He was the son of a friend, and reportedly did a “great” job – but his work was not pleasing to the family. So, this time around, they called me. 🙂
The wallpaper pattern is called “Providence,” and is by Thibaut, one of my favorite brands. It was nice to work with, no shrinking at the seams, and the inks are strongly hued and have a rich matt finish.
The homeowner loved the “Longwood” pattern originally in her powder room (see a snippet of it in the second photo), but, after going through the flooding from Hurricane Harvey, she worried that putting the same paper in her renovated bathroom would remind her of the horrible storm. So she decided to tame things down a little, and went with this “Augustine” pattern by the same company.
She chose this muted colorway (it’s a tad brighter in person than in my photos) partly because the greens in the paper melded nicely with her marble countertop, and also because the blues looked great with her blue ceiling (which was chosen to go with the original Longwood design).
The contractors did a reasonably good job prepping the walls. However, they painted over the old wallpaper, which is not a good idea. They also didn’t bother to remove the mirror or light sconces when they applied their smoothing compound, and you can see remnants of white gunk under the oval where the mirror hung and by peeking behind the light fixture. These were small things, but it took me two hours to smooth over these areas, get to dry, sand, and then prime.
The new Augustine humming bird pattern is one of my all-time favorites. It’s a very old, historic design. I love the design, and the paper is wonderful to work with. It is pre-pasted, so goes up more quickly than papers that have to be pasted by hand. It is easy to manipulate around turns, it doesn’t tear easily, it is thin and hugs the wall tightly, it dries quickly, and it has a lovely “raised ink” texture.
This paper is by Thibaut, and 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.
The home is in the Memorial-Dairy Ashford / Energy Corridor area of Houston.
The Meyerland neighborhood in Houston has flooded severely three times in five years, with 2017’s Harvey being the worst. Here is what people who want to stay in their neighborhood and their home are doing, to be safe from future floods. These are ’50’s & ’60’s era ranch-style homes.
They will add skirting around the bottom. All new construction, which tend to be larger 2-story homes, must be built up high. It’s major expensive to lift a house, so many of the ’60’s era homes have been patched up, but left on the ground. I’d say that at least 50% of the homes are still unoccupied, a year after the flood. Some have been raised, and some have been razed.
Whooah! I stripped off wallpaper from this wall around a window in a home that had some water damage from Hurricane Harvey, to find this black powdery stuff – mildew. You don’t want to put wallpaper over a wall that has mildew, because the black stuff will continue to grow. And because it’s chalky / powdery, it the wallpaper will not stick to it. And it will also work its way through the wallpaper and create a stain on the surface.
I use bleach to kill the mildew and remove it from the wall. Once dry, I use KILZ Original oil-based stain blocker to seal the surface. In this case, I also skim-coated the wall, to make it nice and smooth. I will follow that with a coat of Gardz, a penetrating sealer that is also a good product to hang wallpaper on.
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