Wallpaper in Magnolia Journal (JoAnna Gaines)

There was a nice multi-page spread in the current issue of Magnolia Journal on wallpaper. It talked about various ways it can be used, and how pattern and color can change a room.

Unfortunately, it mentioned peel & stick products as a viable option – they are NOT. Truly horrible stuff. Read my Page to the right.

The first photo is an unconvetional use of color and pattern. Love it.

Third photo, I have hung this pattern, or similar, a good number of times. It is a mural that can be custom-sized to fit your wall.

Fourth photo, “Daydream” by Hygge & West, is very popular and I have hung it many times. Not my favorite brand, because their ink fights their substrate, and tends to curl at the seams.

Palm and banana leaves are always popular. This photo shows how a really large scale can be used effectively in a small space.

Last photo, a really cool idea, to include wallpaper just in the area between the high wainscoting and the crown molding. Note also the dark colors of the wood and the wallpaper. This must be a custom-sized mural, or a border.

Both the room and the wallpaper are an updated take on the “frieze” borders that were common back in the 1910’s and 1920’s – the Art Nouveau and especially the Arts & Crafts decorating movements. Most often placed above dark paneled moldings in dining rooms and living rooms. Today, Bradbury & Bradbury is the most prominent maker of these authentic looking patterns. Interestingly enough, just this week I got a call from a homeowner wanting to put a B&B frieze in their historic home here in Houston.

Double Rolls, Single Rolls, Too Many Rolls

This homeowner was supposed to buy 10 single rolls of wallpaper. So that’s what she ordered – 10 rolls of paper.

But what she got was 10 double rolls of wallpaper. That’s 20 single rolls – twice as much as she needed.

Each of those bolts you see in the box in the photo is a double roll. Double rolls are a good thing. It is typical (and desirable) for two single rolls of paper to be uncut and rolled together as one double roll bolt. You usually get an extra strip of paper out of a double roll bolt.

This is the traditional American way of packaging and referring to wallpaper.

But … some companies use different terminology. These would be most all of the British manufacturers, as well as some American companies who are new to the wallpaper game, and who do not manufacturer their own papers, but get them from outside sources. Some of these are Serena & Lily, Hygge & West, Anthropologie, and middle-man retailers like Amazon, eBay, Wayfair, etc.

For these companies, what most of us call a double roll, they refer to it as single roll. It’s the same amount of paper, the same sized package – it’s just referred to differently.

If you’re not savvy and knowledgeable about the terminology of single and double roll bolts, and about the various companies that use conflicting terminology, you could end up with twice as much paper as you need – or, worse yet, with only half as much as you need.

This company, Graham & Brown, is based in the U.K. Hence their single roll is what I call a double roll. The company is very large, though, and has offices here in the U.S. – so they almost seem American. My client ordered her paper on-line, instead from my favorite source (see page to the right), and so there was no human eye overseeing the single/double roll conundrum.

Bottom line – she got caught in the conundrum, and ended up with twice as much paper as needed.

This is one reason I ask my clients to run their brand and pattern selections by me before they make their purchases. That way (hopefully), I can catch snafus like this, as well as figure in factors like pattern repeat, multiple drop matches, extra-wide material, and etc.

Fairytale Wonderland for Young Boy’s West U Bedroom

This young family in the West University Place neighborhood of Houston started out with another installation company that was not a good fit. They also started out with a wallpaper selection from a company that I find to be of poor quality (Hygge & West). I was honored that they let me take on the wallpaper install. AND that they listened to my suggestion to explore other manufactuers … the paper they chose is superior in quality, and is a far more charming and fitting design for their young son.

The walls originally had a light texture that I skim-floated over, then sanded smooth, and then primed with Gardz.

The new wallpaper is very similar in color to their original choice of palm leaves, so they could keep the trim and wainscot paint that had already been applied.

Whereas paper from the original manufacturer is known for curling and disappointing “pouches” at the seams, their final selection from Boras Tapeter (a Scandinavian company) is some of the most cooperative and best performing paper I have every worked with.

The seams are invisible, the material doesn’t expand (no pattern distortion or screwed up measurements) and it doesn’t shrink (no gaps at the seams). There is no booking time, so each strip can be pasted and then hung immediately. It can also be hung via the paste-the-wall method. It hugs the wall tightly and turns corners nicely. It doesn’t crease easily, as many thicker non-wovens do. When it’s time to redecorate, this non-woven material is designed to strip off the wall easily and with minimal damage to the wall. And the surface is more washable than most, making it well suited to a young child’s room.

And best of all, the “Wonderland” design, with frolicking animals and whimsical foliage, is much better suited to a child’s room than the original palm leaf option.

This wallpaper pattern is by Boras Tapeter, 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.

A Fun Backdrop Wallpaper for Artwork

This young family in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston ownes a lot of contemporary artwork. They wanted to brighten and enliven their ochre-colored dining room, while providing a suitable background that would not obscure their paintings.

This paintbrush-stroke gold rose petal design on a white background does that perfectly.

This pattern is from Anthropologie and is by York, in their SureStrip line, which is designed to strip off the wall easily when it’s time to redecorate. It’s a thin pre-pasted product, and goes up nicely, hugs the wall tightly, and the seams are nearly invisible.

What’s extra cool is that this design is very similar to the popular “Petal Pusher” by Hygge & West … but that company’s papers have the unfortunate problem of curling at the seams. (Do a Search here with key words to read my experiences.) I am tickled to know that there is an alternative that is much more cooperative and satisfactory.

Patch Disguises Delaminated Wall

I hung this paper for a young couple in a cute 1930 bungalow in the Heights neighborhood of Houston a year or two ago. After a year or so, the wallpaper began to gap at the seams. Turns out this is not the wallpaper coming loose from the wall. What is happening is that the various layers of paint and etc. inside the wall are actually coming apart.

The wallpaper dried and shrank and put torque (tension) on the wall at the seams. Also factoring in is humidity in the air, poor air circulation in the air, and possibly a moisture problem inside this wall. Oh, and this wallpaper manufacturer, Hygge & West, is known for using inks that curl away from the wall at the points where they cross the seams.

But the real culprit is years’ worth of paint and other wall surfaces that are not compatible with one another. Back 80 years ago, you had oil-based paint. Cover that with latex paint, then do a project that creates dust that sifts onto the walls, add some gloss paint, roll on a coat of latex, then a layer of texture, then more paint … all without proper prep between.

Proper prep or not, most of these wall coatings are not prepared to adhere to one another, and when drying / shrinking wallpaper puts stress on the surface, the various layers can let go from one anther and “delaminate” – which means to come apart.

In the photo, you can see the thickness of the separating layers. Some layers of paint have held fast to the wall, but others have let go and curled back. Because there is dust and gloss and other factors underneath, it’s not guaranteed that anything will hold the layers back tight to the wall.

Adhesive silicone caulk was my glue of choice. It will stick to porous or glossy surfaces. I squeezed some carefully into the popped seams, spread it around, closed the seam back up, and then waited for the caulk to tack up and grab ahold of the layer above it.

Eventually the caulk dried enough and became tacky enough that it held the layers together. Not perfectly, but at least there was no gaping opening at the seam.

The gap and a slight “pouch” still showed, so I thought of covering them with a patch that would span the seam, holding both sides together.

So next I took some left over paper (ALWAYS save your left overs!) and cut out dark green palm leaves. I made sure to leave a wide section on either side that was cut along the individual fronds, so they would mimic the pattern on the wall, and so there would be a wide area to straddle the seam and add stability. The area I cut out between each front helped the patch blend in with the pattern that was on the existing paper on the wall.

The stupid camera ate my picture of the patch after it was cut and pasted, but before it was applied to the wall. Dang it, because that would have explained a lot of my process.

Anyway, I made several of these frond-leaved patches, pasted them, and then applied them to the wall, directly straddling the popped seams. Not only did this cover and hide the open edges of the seams, but the width of the patch helped strengthen the bond while at the same time lessening the possibility that a seam would open up again.

In the last photo,  at the top of the picture, you can see one appliqué patch applied, straddling the seam.  Moving down the wall, I would add two more similar patches over the seam.

From a distance – heck, even from up close, you could not see the repaired areas.

Wallpaper Gets Exposure in Magazines

Thank you again, Better Homes & Gardens, for featuring wallpaper in your magazine.

The first photo is a powder room done in “Nuvolette,” a rolling cloud pattern in the Fornasetti line by the British company Cole & Son.

Next is a hand-painted scenic mural, and think the brand was Gracie, although there are a few other companies that make similar. These are very high-end products, and this homeowner saved mega bucks by having just a few panels made, and then framing them and hanging as artwork (as opposed to papering the entire room with the mural).

Third photo is a popular foresty pattern by Hygge & West. They have delightful designs, but I am not crazy about their papers, because the seams tend to “pouch” just a little. Do a Search here to read more (upper right corner).

In the last photo, you see just a little wallpaper in the background.

Hygge & West Wallpaper – Curling at the Seams

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Hygge & West, an on-line company, makes some darling wallpaper patterns. But I don’t enjoy hanging their papers. Because they use ink that fight the substrate it’s printed on, which causes curling paper and “pouched” seams.

Some inks smell like moth balls, and those tend to cause the curling problems. What happens is, the inked areas absorb moisture from the paste differently from the paper backing (substrate). The substrate expands, and that causes the paper to curl backwards. The second photo shows an extreme example of that.

Usually, once the paste dries, the paper shrinks back and the seams lie flat. But you can never count on that – the first photo shows a seam that has been on the wall for an hour or so, and the green ink is still curling away from the wall. The tendency is to keep pushing the seams flat – and that can cause overworking of the seams, stretching, burnishing, or other damage.

It helps to lightly sponge the face of the paper with water before pasting the back. This helps equalize the absorption of water, and evens out the expansion rate of the wallpaper. Make sure there is paste all the way to the edges of the paper – but not past the edge or onto the surface, which could cause staining. And use a little less paste on the edges, so it will dry faster and grab onto the wall. It also helps to stripe the wall behind the seam with a roller of paste – not much, but enough to put a layer of paste onto the wall, which can be drying and tacking up, ready to grab onto the edges of the strip of wallpaper.

Soring Birds Day Dream in a Baby’s Nursery

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What a well-loved pattern for babies’ rooms! This soon-to-be-with-us baby in a Spring Branch (Houston) home has a lovely new nursery. I have hung this many times, but this is the first time in this colorway.

The pattern is called “Day Dream” and is by Hygge & West, an on-line company. It comes in many colors, and fits into many rooms or themes.

The second photo shows me about to hang the first strip, having plotted the layout so the bird will fall down the center of the wall, and using my laser level (the red line on the wall) to keep the paper plumb.

Hygge & West papers can be challenging to hang. The seams curl and the paper waffles. The second-to-last photo shows the slight curling at the seams where ink falls on the seams, which is common to their paper. However, this time, I had much less difficulty with the paper in general….It laid flat without waffling or wrinkling, and there was very little curling at the seams. I hope that this means that the H & W team has listened to us out here in the field, and has started to use a better substrate and ink formula.

Still, they could use some help in packaging their merchandise for shipping – the final photo shows damaged ends of rolls of paper, due to being banged about during shipping. Unfortunately, all of the rolls were banged up, and the damage went deep into each bolt – meaning that I couldn’t cut around and discard the damaged areas. Since this pattern has a lot of open space, there isn’t much pattern to disguise these bashed areas, so they are going to show on the wall.

Wallpaper In Better Homes & Gardens Once Again

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I am always tickled to see wallpaper featured in national magazines. It draws a lot of attention to the many faces of wallcoverings, and entices more people to use them. These photos are from the April 2017 issue of Better Homes & Gardens.

Sigourney by Quadrille, in a powder room. Interestingly enough, I have this same pattern coming up, but in a softer tan color, in a dining room, in a few weeks.

Daydream by Hygge & West. This a well-loved pattern, and I have hung it several times, in many colors. Interestingly enough, I have it coming up, also, in a few weeks, for a baby’s nursery accent wall.

A yellow ikat trellis by Thibaut. Interestingly enough, I hung this same pattern, but in aqua, with a complimentary leopard print companion paper, in a powder room a few months ago.

Navy blue grasscloth in a dining room, above the white wainscoting. The strips in this photo are narrow, and do not show the visible seams and possible color variations (shading, paneling) that are common with many grasscloths.

An over-sized floral of cabbage roses on a smoky black background. I have not hung this one yet, but many of my colleagues across the country have. It’s a popular look. The overscaled size of this pattern, and the dramatic color contrasts, make it a daring choice for a small room like this powder room.

A wildly and brightly colored geometric pattern for a children’s play room. This is a little similar to what is in the background of the twins’ room on the TV show Blackish.

A pattern reminiscent of tropical thatched roofs. This is reminiscent of a similar pattern I put in a “tree house” home office a few months ago. (Search on my blog to see pics of the full project.)

A mural of misty mountain fog. I totally love this mural. Murals have taken on a whole new look these days, leaving behind the old scenes of palm trees leaning over tropical white sand beaches, and bringing us to much more modern and innovative vignettes.

More murals, including an impressionistic floral in bright colors (I have done two in the similar theme – do a Search on my blog), and an updated beach scene. (Note the current trend among manufacturers / vendors to not go to the trouble to hang the paper on the wall, but to instead run a clothes line across the wall and use clothes pins to “artfully” string up the rolls of wallpaper, letting them drop loosely to the floor. This method is easy / inexpensive for the vendor to do, and it looks oh-so-cool- but it prevents the shopper from seeing what the product would look like attached firmly to a smooth surface.)

The final mural is a tropical forest scene. This has been a popular mural scene / theme for decades. But this version is printed on better quality paper, and the photo image has much more detail, depth of color, texture, etc.

Many of these murals can be custom-made, to fit the dimensions of your wall / room. Measuring is tricky, so be sure to contact your wallcovering installer BEFORE you order the mural or wallpaper.

A Horrible Place for a Wallpaper Seam

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Often you can “fudge” wallpaper patterns, to avoid awkward or unstable placement of seams – but just as often, you cannot.

Here I could not avoid having the seam fall ONE QUARTER OF AN INCH away from the outside corner on this wall.

So why all the consternation?

First, being just 1/4″ from the corner, there is little wall space for the paper to grab onto, which raises the worry about the paper not adhering, and curling away from the wall, or, at minimal, gapping in areas.

This brand is particularly challenging, because it is known for curling at the seams, which further hinders a good, tight, flat seam.

Second, since walls are never straight or plumb, it’s hard to keep the wallpaper design evenly spaced and correctly positioned down this length of wall.

The un-plumb walls also make it near impossible for wallpaper to wrap around the outside corner without warping, which makes it difficult for the subsequent strip, which is straight, to butt up nicely against the un-straight edge.

Un-plumb corners also throw the wrapped wallpaper off-plumb. That can result in the pattern’s design “going off-plumb.” This means that the horizontal pattern won’t line up perfectly along vertical walls (like in corners).

Another thing that will happen is that the pattern motifs can start creeping either up or down from the ceiling line (un-level ceiling lines factor in here, too.)

And, lastly, because wallpaper absorbs moisture from the paste and then expands and / or warps, it’s hard to keep everything straight and plumb as it turns a corner. Which makes it hard for the next strip to butt perfectly up against it.

This wallpaper is by Hygge & West, and can be bought from their on-line website.