Kill Point Over Door

If you’re hanging wallpaper around a room with four walls and four corners , virtually always when that last strip of paper meets up with the first strip you hung some hours ago, you’ll have a mis-match of the pattern . That’s why we try to tuck this in an inconspicuous place like a 1′ high corner above or behind a door.
But sometimes you don’t have a hidden corner , and all four corners are highly visible and run the full height of the wall. In these cases, it looks much better for the pattern to match floor to ceiling , as you see in this photo. But you have to put the kill point somewhere!

In these cases, a more logical and less noticeable location for the mis-match is the shorter area over the door – where nobody is going to be spending much time looking at, anyway.
My first strip is on the left, and the rest of the powder room has been papered, and I’m working my way from the right to meet up with that strip on the left.

Here it is going into place. I’ve matched the pattern on this new strip to the strip on the left . The strip is too wide, and is overlapping the strip on the right. And, as expected, the pattern doesn’t match up on the right.
As an aside, that blue plastic tape you see at the top of the strip of wallpaper is to keep paste off the ceiling. Once I’ve trimmed that excess paper off, I’ll remove the tape , and the ceiling will be nice and clean – no paste residue to wipe off or worry that it will be visible or damage the paint / cause flaking .

Here I’ve trimmed that short strip at ceiling and above the door trim. As you can see, it’s overlapping the strip on the right, leaving a bump, and plus, the pattern doesn’t match .
To be honest, with this busy pattern and this short area up over a door , this 1′ of mismatch isn’t going to be very noticeable. But I wanted to make it look better.
I’m going to splice these two strips together.
In the photo above, the left strip is overlapping the strip on the right. I don’t like the way the pattern is lining up. A splice will leave branches cut off, and will be noticeable.

So here I’ve reversed things and have overlapped the strip on the right on top of the strip on the left . Now the pattern gives a better option for a splice . I like that there is a curved vertical tree trunk that I can cut along. This will help disguise the splice.

So now to do the splice, I have push hard enough on my blade to cut through two strips of paper. But it’s important to not score the wall surface beneath. When the wallpaper paste dries and the paper shrinks a tad, it will put tension on the wall surface . If that underlying surface is not unstable or not sound, due to being cut into, or dust is another factor , that tension can cause the wall surface to pull apart , and the wallpaper can come away from the wall. Actually, it’s not the wallpaper coming away – it’s the layers of the wall pulling apart.
So I use these thin flexible polystyrene plastic strips under where the splice will be. You can’t cut through them!

Here I’ve pulled the two strips of wallpaper away from the wall and am positioning the plastic strip under where the splice will take place. Next, I’ll smooth the two wallpaper strips back into place, with the right one overlapping the one on the left.

I like to hold a single edge razor blade in my fingers , but you can use a blade holder or trim knife , too.

Here I’ve free-handed my cut , trimming along the vertical tree trunk at the top , then straight down through blank area, then through some branches, and finally at the bottom again trimming along a curved vertical tree branch. Now I’m removing the excess from the left side of the trim / splice .

Lifting the strip on the right so I can remove the excess piece that was trimmed off on the right.

Now removing the polystyrene strip.

Using my plastic smoother to gently press the two trimmed strips of wallpaper into place.

Here it is all done. Trimming along the vertical branch at the top has helped disguise the splice. The bottom area doesn’t match 100% perfectly, but I’m OK with that. I’ll work on smoothing out that teensy overlap and the seam will be nice and flat.

All done!

The wallpaper pattern is called Luminous Branches and is by York . It’s non-woven / paste the wall material , and very nice to work with, durable , stain resistant , and will strip off the wall easily and with no damage when you redecorate .
If you’re interested in the source for the splicing / double cutting strips , or the thin blue tape to keep paste off the ceiling, please email me at wallpaperlady@att.net

Kill Point Over Door

aaHere’s what this flowing viny wallpaper pattern looks like in this dining room in the Garden Oaks / Oak Forest neighborhood of Houston . The bottom 1/3 of the wall is block paneling / wainscoting , so the wallpaper on just the area above is not overwhelming .
A kill point is the place in a room where your last strip of wallpaper meets up with the first strip you hung . this virtually always results in a pattern mis-match . So we try to hide that in an inconspicuous place, such as in a corner behind a door .
In this room, all of the corners are very visible . A mismatched corner of 7′ high would be very noticeable .

So in this room, I was able to cleverly disguise the mis-match in a much shorter area, over a door . This is only 6″ high . Here my first strip is on the left, and my last strip is on the right, with two short strips needed to bridge that gap .

Here the strip on the right has been put into place.

Here’s the piece that will butt up against the strip on the left. Eeek! It’s 1/2″ too narrow to cover the gap. Also, as you can see, there is an obvious pattern mis-match at that seam on the right.

look at this tree branch . I’m going to use that to my advantage.

Here I’ve taken another piece and have matched the pattern on the right side. Note that it’s not matching on th left.

Here I am, back to that strip we saw a few photos ago, that will match with the strip on the left. Remember tha tree branch I pointed out? Here I’ve trimmed the wallpaper vertically along that tree branch .

Here I’m putting it into place, butting it up against the strip on the left, and overlapping the strip on the right. But that’s going to leave a vertical ridge under this strip, where the strip underneath it ends on the left.

But you won’t notice that overlap if it runs under a design motif . Here I’m using a pencil to trace the outline of that tree branch, bringing it in so that the tree branch will overlap just 1/8″ – 1/4″ over the strip on the right.
Note that since the surface of this paper is vinyl , and wallpaper paste doesn’t always adhere well to slick plastic , I’ve used a special border paste or vinyl over vinyl or seam repair adhesive just on this small 1/8″ overlapped area .

Strip on the right trimmed to conform to the curves of the tree branch.

Tree branch piece being put into place.

Tree branch strip trimmed and finished.

SDone and viewed from below. OK, so the pattern doesn’t match 100% perfectly the way the designer intended. Some of the motifs are closer together than they “should” be. From here, who the heck is going to notice?! This looks pretty darned good – and it looks way better than having a 7′ long mis-match in a very visible corner .

The pattern is called Twining and is by Graham & Brown . It has a very light texture , and also a slight
metallic sheen on the branches . It’s a non-woven / paste the wall material , and will strip off the wall easily and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate . I like their papers a lot .
You can purchase G&B from Dorota at the Sherwin-Williams in the Rice Village . Call first, as hours vary. (713) 529-6515 .
Here’s another cool thing … Go back to that first photo. Since I started hanging paper by centering the pattern between the two windows on the wall to the right (not visible in the photo), by the time I worked my way around to the wall between the windows you see in front of you, the pattern was not going to be centered in between the windows. I thought it would look better if it was balanced symmetrically. So I positioned the dominant part of the tree branches in between the windows. And then I used the same overlap-and-disguise trick over the window on the right.

Splitting a Strip to Ease Installation

Here I’m about to place my last wallpaper strip, which will run from the ceiling to floor, about 5” wide strip along the cabinet (in this photo this strip has already been placed – just imagine it as being blank wall).  And then the area under the cabinet, about 20” wide x 4’ high.
It’s awkward to handle a strip that’s 20” wide x 9’ long, if you only need to cover a 5” wide area.  Also it slops a lot of paste onto the cabinet, that you then need to wipe off.  So normally I would split this strip vertically, from ceiling to floor, to 6” wide, enough to cover that 5” wide area next to the cabinet, plus underlap the cabinet by 1”.  This 1” provides stability in case of shifting, and also in case the wall isn’t exactly straight or my measurements a tad off, or paper expands, etc. 
After that 6” wide strip was in place, I’d take the left side of the split strip (remaining 14” wide piece) and put just the bottom 4’ of that into place. 
But I realized that it would be simpler in this instance to cut the strip horizontally, a little above 4’ high.  There was a conveniently placed tree branch that disguised my cut.

Here’s the upper 5” wide section in place. 

Here is the bottom section going into place.

Tree branch meets tree branch, the joint is invisible.  Next the excess under the cabinet will be trimmed off, as well as where this strip meets the existing piece in the corner, at the far left.  This corner will be hidden behind the dryer in this laundry room , so was chosen to be the kill point / mis-matched corner . 
The pattern is called Fruto Prohibido and is by Cole & Son . It’s a nice non-woven / paste the wall material , although I usually paste the paper .

Close – So Close! – Kill Point

The kill point is your last seam in a room, where your last strip of wallpaper meets up with the first strip you hung. Because that last strip won’t be its full width, this virtually always this results in a pattern mis-match. So usually this goes in an inconspicuous corner. But this room had none, and ending / killing in a corner would have left us with a 10′ high pattern mis-match.
So I opted to put it over the door, where the pattern mis-match would be only 18″ high – and where not many people spend much time looking up there, anyway.
Today I got pretty lucky, and ended up with almost a perfect match – within 3/4″.
But I had that gap to fill, and doing so would have ended up with the pattern repeating itself inside that 3/4″ gap. This really isn’t a biggie. The pattern is accommodating and, like I said, it’s up over the door.”
But I have fun with these kill points, and had plans for a better disguise. Usually a double cut / splice is used. You take a fresh strip of paper an overlap it on top of the one below, and then splice together. My first idea was to make a swerved D/C coming from the top down along the the left of the sign post, and then moving to the right of the BBQ truck, leaving enough white space on the top strip to cover the sign post and truck on the strip underneath.

But as I studied the pattern , I realized that if I moved my splice over to the right, I would avoid making curvy cuts and come straight down between the lake and the building. Finished: You don’t notice that there is an extra sunbather and that the building has an additional column.
There are some important precautions that need to be taken in doing these double cuts to avoid damage to the wall underneath,,,, but I didn’t take photos. But you can do a Search here to see previous posts with photos that chronicle the various steps. Like here:
https://wallpaperlady.wordpress.com/2021/10/10/fun-over-the-door-kill-point-with-swirled-damask/
This wallpaper pattern is the Austin Toile from Katie Kime brand.
installer houston

An Amazingly Well-Balanced Room

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O.K. – this is going to be a pretty technical post, and it will probably thrill me (and other paperhangers) more than it will the typical homeowner, but I was really tickled with the way this turned out. Here goes:

This wallpaper pattern is called “A Twitter,” and is by Schumacher. It is a fun design, and has a strong vertical element, with the trunks of trees very dominant in the design. I hung it in a powder room in the Heights neighborhood of Houston. This room was a rectangle, with the front and rear walls the same width, and the two side walls the same width.

Before I start hanging paper, I plot out the room (engineering), to plan where I want to place the pattern, where seams will fall, etc. I considered running the tree trunk behind the mirror. But that would have made the pattern sit off-center on the wall. Since that wall is facing you as you enter the room, I wanted it to be more symmetrical.

So I decided to center the pattern on the wall. But if I placed the tree trunk in the middle of the wall, then there would be only one tree trunk on that wall, and the next time the tree trunk appeared, it would be on the side walls, and not visible on the main wall. I thought it would look better to have the tree trunk on the main wall. So I planned it so that branches fell down the center line of the wall, and were flanked by a pair of tree trunks on either side. See photo.

What’s cool is, by placing the pattern this way, it turned out that the tree trunk fell almost perfectly centered behind both the mirror and the toilet. See top photo.

Then, as I progressed around the room and papered the side walls, the pattern fell symmetrically on these side walls, and mirrored itself perfectly. Meaning that the two walls that were perpendicular to the main wall, both had the same pattern as it advanced toward the back wall.

The back wall, then, also had the same pattern at the same measurements coming in from the corners as the wallpaper approached the door. See third and fourth photos.

What’s even cooler is that as the paper went around the door, the tree trunk magically “almost” perfectly centered itself over the door. It was so close that it looks like it is centered.

What’s even more cool is how the kill point in this room turned out. The “kill point” is the final corner in a room, where the first strip of wallpaper meets the last strip of wallpaper; this point is virtually always a pattern mis-match. So we try to place it over a door, or behind a door, or somewhere where it won’t be too noticeable.

But in this bathroom, as you can see in the third and fourth photos, the wall area on either side of the final wall was 9″ or more wide, and a mis-match would be very obvious. What I like to do in these cases is to keep the pattern intact by wrapping the paper from the final corner around onto the final wall where it butts up against the door. The door stops the pattern, so you don’t notice that the pattern would not match if you continued it to the opposite corner.

The thing is, there is still the area above the door that needs to be covered with wallpaper, and the design coming along the top of the door was not going to match up with the pattern I had wrapped around the corner to the left of the door. It almost lined up, but was off by about 2″ vertically, as well as about 3/4″ at the top of the wall, because un-plumb walls and un-level ceiling lines had caused the pattern to travel upwards a little.

So what I did was, referring to the last photo, as the paper above the door was moving to the left, and as the pattern on the left of the door was moving to the right and about to meet the pattern over the door, which would have resulted about 2″ of excess paper, and in tree limbs not lining up and birds being cut in half, as well as one bird’s head being at the top of the wall and another same bird’s head being 3/4″ below the top of the wall.

So what I did was, I slit the paper along the right side of the tree trunk. Then I took the right side of the strip of wallpaper that had been cut off and slid it down until the pattern matched up with the strip that was already over the door. Then I slipped the excess 2″ of paper on the left side of this piece under the cut tree trunk to its left. This effectively “swallowed up” the 2″ of excess paper. I trimmed this off so the overlap would be more like 1/2″ and could be disguised by the tree trunk.

So I had lined up the heads of the birds, and I had eliminated the 2′ excess of paper, and everything was hidden by that tree trunk.

One eye-jarring problem remained – The bird at the top of the tree trunk had been disembodied, and his head was at the top of the wall but his body was an inch or two below.

So what I did was to take a piece of left over paper that had the same bird on it and cut around the bird and the branches, and paste that over the tree trunk so the bird you see is completely intact. I needed to cut a few extra piece of brown paper and paste them over the tree trunk so your eye would not catch any incongruency, but you have to admit – that bird and the tree trunk it is sitting on looks pretty darned natural.

There was another area that had a void spot due to where the strips of paper had been moved over or to the side from one another, and I also used this appliqué method to disguise it.

Note that all of this is up 12′ off the ground, so you can’t see overlaps or appliqués or ridges. These techniques might work equally well at eye-level, or they might be more obvious. But in this room, with this pattern and this lay-out and this paper, it sure looks great.

I would challenge any homeowner – and even most any paperhanger – to stand on the floor and find where the pattern / paper was manipulated to disguise the kill point.

All this took a lot of time and math and plotting – but it sure was fun, and it sure was gratifying.

Swirly Leafy Priano Wallpaper in Spring Branch Powder Room

Walls were originally a light tan , with a poor texture job , too much caulk along the top of the backsplash , and later it was discovered that someone had painted (several layers ) on top of wallpaper .

Same area after I’ve skim-floated and sanded smooth , then primed with Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime made specifically for use under wallpaper . I have Murphy Brothers paint store add a little blue tint so I can see where I’ve rolled it on.

Finished!

Such a happy pattern to look at – swirly , nods to foliage and ferns , crisp . Yet not too busy , due to the 2-tone color palate and the tight, overall design .

Close up. You get the feel of a watercolor artist / painting .

The design matched up perfectly in the last corner . This only happens about once in every 10 years!
In addition, what’s even more astounding is that EACH of the four walls in this powder room was EXACTLY the width of two strips of my Serena & Lily 27″ wide paper + expansion. The strips fell in EACH corner ABSOLUTELY tight and straight. I’ve had perfect kills before, but never had paper fall in the corners with no need to wrap or trim.
I know that’s a little techy for the non-professional reader to grasp. But just know that it was a room and a day full of almost paranormal-grade coincidences , math , and execution .

Pattern is Priano and is made by Serena & Lily , one of my favorite companies.
This is the home of a young family in the Spring Branch area of Houston .

Even Stripes for a Smooth Kill Point

When you hang wallpaper on all four walls of a room, when your last strip meets up with the first strip you hung, you almost always end up with a mis-matched pattern. I didn’t want a 9′ long pattern mis-match in a visible corner in this powder room. So I opted to put it over the door, where the space is only 7″ high, and where people are not likely to be looking anyway.
I had to bridge about 30″ of wall space.

As my strips came closer together, I was left with this gap.

If I put the next piece in place, I would be left with some ‘boxes’ that would be cut off, leaving a noticeable mis-match.
I knew I could make it look better.

First I used my straightedge to trim the top of the strips so they would fit flush at the ceiling line.
That’s not usually how you work along a ceiling line, but in this case it was a good option.

Then I sliced the strips apart vertically, following one edge of the dark blue stripes.

Then I started putting the strips in place, overlapping each of them just a little, to make each set of boxes narrower.
This made each set of boxes narrower, but it also made them equal width.

Here they are, all lined up in place.

You really don’t notice that the boxes above the door are narrower than those on either side of the door.
And it looks a whole lot better than having boxes chopped in half.
This wallpaper pattern is called Feather and is by Serena & Lily.

Kill Point Over Door, Ridge, More

After you’ve hung wallpaper on all the walls in a room, the point where your last strip meets up with the first strip is called the kill point . This virtually always ends up in a pattern mis-match. That’s why you engineer to place it in an inconspicuous place, such as behind a door.
This powder room, though, had no hidden corner or handy door. That meant that I would have a pattern mis-match a full 5′ high, to the left of the toilet you see here. I prefer to have the pattern match in a corner like this. As you can see – it does. I will explain how I accomplished that.

I decided to place the kill point over the door. Even though this space is 2′ high and a mis-match might be noticeable, not many people are looking up over the door, so it’s a better choice than in a 5′ or 9′ long corner.
The dark smudges on the wall in the photo are where I’ve spread paint, to prevent white walls from peeking out, should the dark wallpaper shrink as the paste dries.

Here I’ve positioned the strip on the left. This leaves a gap of about 3″. Once I match the new strip up to the piece on the right, its pattern will not match perfectly with the strip on the left.

Now I’ve positioned both strips, and the one on the right is overlapping the one on the left.
Here’s an idea of what the pattern mis-match will look like. To be honest, it’s not all that bad, with this busy pattern and being up over the door. Still, I thought I could make it look better.
I’m going to do a double cut , which is our installers’ fancy term for a splice. I’m going to cut through the two strips, splicing them together, cutting along the vertical foliage elements, to minimize cut-off motifs and to disguise the splice.

When double cutting on the wall, it’s really important that you slice through the two layers of wallpaper only , and not cut into the primer or wall surface beneath. This is because, if the wall surface becomes scored or compromised, when the wallpaper paste dries and the paper shrinks and pulls taught, it can put tension on the wall surface. If the surface is not intact, it can give way and actually come apart ( delaminate ), resulting in wallpaper that comes away from the wall – and there’s nothing beneath it to paste it back to.
I’ve blogged about this before, so do a Search here to learn more. It’s important!
Anyway, to protect the wall beneath where I will make my splice cut, I’ve placed three layers of scrap wallpaper, to pad the wall. I figure I can cut through the two top layers, but not all five.
Note that three layers of non-woven material have some thickness, and can “throw off” the splice cut and prevent the top two strips from fitting together perfectly. In this case, the paper is flexible enough that I’m not worried about that particular scenario.

The strips are in place, and I’m ready to make my cut. I prefer to use a single-edged razor blade held in my fingers, rather than a blade-holder. What’s most important is that the blade be brand new and spankin’ sharp!

Here I’ve made my cut and am removing excess paper from the right side of the top strip. Look carefully and you can see how my razor blade followed the contours of the vertical foliage design elements.

Here I’ve removed the excess paper from the left edge of the bottom strip. You can see they are poised to fit together nicely.

Before fitting the two strips back together, though, I’m examining the wall surface. Check the photo carefully, and you’ll see that I did, after all, score into the primer. 😦 The surface below is skim-coat that was used to smooth a textured wall – and another potential layer that may come apart when exposed to tension from the drying wallpaper.
Shoulda used a Boggess Strip. https://www.steveboggesspaperhanging.com/lexanpage.htm

One way to prevent the wall from delaminating is to put something over the compromised area, to distribute the tension of the drying paper and take it away from the cut wall. Here I’ve taken a scrap of wallpaper, which is a tough non-woven material, and carefully peeled the printed surface from the white substrate (no pic of that process). Now I have a thin material that I can use to pad the wall.
I’m using the black printed side facing out, in case the spliced strips shrink a little – anything peeping out will be black and not noticeable.

Here is the bit of paper in place, spanning across the cut on the wall.

Now I’ve smoothed the two top strips back into place. Since my double cut followed along the vertical foliage elements as much as possible, and because I cut around the gold flowers to keep them full and round, the pattern looks like it matches up just about perfectly.
But wait! … What’s that lump / ridge under the wallpaper, the full height of the seam? That’s my seam padding! Doesn’t look great.
I’m really surprised at this. The non-woven wallpaper material is thick. But that’s why I pulled the top and bottom layers apart, to make my patch piece thinner. I guess not thin enough. Once dried, this ridge is going to be obvious.
But, to be honest, this is up over a door where no one’s going to be spending much time looking. In addition, once I get my 100 watt light bulb out of there and replace the homeowners’ original, small light fixture, this bump under the wallpaper will be pretty much indiscernable.

Still, that lump was buggin’ me. Another invention from my colleague Steve Bogges to the rescue! Pictured is his seam tape , which was made specifically for this type situation. This is very thin – yet strong – paper tape that is used to bridge cut areas like this, and prevent tension from drying wallpaper from tugging at unstable walls.
The tape has a pre-pasted side (the gloss you see), and feathered edges, to make it less noticeable under wallpaper.

Hard to see, but here I’ve placed the seam tape over the cut wall areas

Now the two top strips have been smoothed back into place. Amazingly, no bump from the seam tape beneath shows. And the pattern mis-match is barely visible, too.
Win-win!
All that’s left to do is to wipe paste off the surface of the wallpaper. This overlapping and splicing does mean that wallpaper paste will get on the surface of the strip underneath. Actually, there is a way to prevent that, and it also involves products from Steve Boggess …
But … that’s a blog post for another day …

This pattern is called Peonies and is by Rifle Paper.

Soft Look in Heights Powder Room

Before

Finished. I love the soft colors against the putty-colored woodwork and wainscoting.

The red beam from my laser level helps get that first strip centered and plumb.

Perfect!

From a distance.

Close up, you can see a very slight raised ink texture to this wallpaper.

The last corner ( kill point ) matched almost perfectly. This rarely happens, so it’s always a thrill when it looks this good all by itself.

The pattern is called Khotan and is by Zak & Fox. It’s a non-woven, paste-the-wall product. It was a bit thick and stiff to work with, and creased easily. But it went up nicely, and the seams were invisible. And, when it’s time to redecorate, this non-woven material will strip off the wall easily and in one piece, with minimal damage to the wall.

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Fun Kill Point With Schumacher Versailles

The kill point is your last corner in a room, where your last strip of wallpaper meets up with the first strip you hung hours ago. This virtually always results in a pattern mis-match, In the photo above, if I were to add the next strip of wallpaper to the right of the striped section, in the order it’s supposed to be hung, a mis-match would result when that design lands in the corner and bumps against the leaves and flowers to the right.

I thought I could make it look better. Instead of matching the pattern in proper sequence coming from the left, I decided to cut a fresh strip and match it with the strip on the right.

This gave me a perfect pattern match. But left me with a 1″ gap between the strips.

I could fill that gap in with a strip of plain blue paper, cut from scrap wallpaper in the trash pile. But this particular pattern didn’t have any areas with 1″ width of unprinted paper. So I used my straightedge and a razor blade and cut two 1/2″ wide strips of paper the height of this area over the door.

Here I have placed the first of these next to the strip on the right.

Here I have butted the second 1/2″ strip up against the first one, and am tucking it underneath the striped strip to its left. The vertical lines in the design will disguise any ridges caused by the overlap. Besides – who’s gonna notice this 9′ up, anyway?

Here it is, finished and smoothed into place. Note that these strips are still wet, and will be homogeneous in color once they all dry.

Here’s the finished corner. Remember – it still needs to dry. You can’t notice that there’s an inch of extra blue space in there.

From a distance.