Preventing White From Showing At The Seams

When wallpaper gets wet with paste, it expands a bit. And when it dries, it can shrink just a tad. That teeny gap at the seams can expose the wall underneath it. This can happen even with the non-woven materials, which are supposed to be dimensionally stable.
In addition, manufacturers usually print on a white substrate, so sometimes you see the edges of the paper at the seams, too.
All this is much more noticeable on a dark paper, such as here.
One thing I do to prevent / minimize this is to strip the wall with dark paint under where the seams will fall. So even if a seam opens up a bit, you’ll see dark, not white.
Since non-woven wallpapers don’t expand (much), it’s easy to measure the width of your strips and plot where the seams will fall, use a level, and then apply the paint.

I use plain old craft paint from the hobby store. I use a scrap of sponge and dip that in water (in my orange bottle cap) then into the paint, and then run my stripe down the plumb line I’ve drawn on the wall or used my laser level to shoot a vertical line.
It’s important to not get the paint too heavy or thick, because the wallpaper paste may not want to grab ahold of paint like it wants to hold on to a wallpaper primer. And definitely don’t use a gloss paint.
Be sure that it’s good and dry before you hang the wallpaper. A heat gun will speed things along if needed.

Not pictured, but you can look up other posts here … I also take a bit of chalk of a corresponding color and run it along the edge of the wallpaper to cover up that white edge. It’s important to apply the chalk from the back, to avoid getting any on the front of the wallpaper. Some colleagues use water markers, pencils, or gouache paint. Whatever you use, do not use anything with oil-based inks or colors. These will bleed and stain your wallpaper.
Chalking the edges is more important than striping the wall, IMO.

This pattern is called Allure and is by Graham & Brown , a brand I like a lot.

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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Using Laser Level to Position First Wallpaper Strip

Here I’ve measured the wall and the wallpaper, and the design, and plotted where I want my first strip to hang – in this case, with a vertical line of the wallpaper smack in the center of the wall. The black object you see in the foreground is my laser level, and it’s shooting a vertical red line onto the wall, right where I want my first strip to land.

Here I’ve positioned my first strip along that vertical laser line. This ensures that my strip is perfectly plumb.

Laser Level Plumb Line

That dark object on the right is my laser level – a cool gadget that shoots a red vertical line onto the wall. That line serves as a guide for placing a strip of wallpaper, and for ensuring that it hangs nice and plumb.

There are other uses, too. And some fancy (i.e. expensive) ones will shoot horizontal lines, multiple lines, lines onto the ceiling ….

Laser Level Line Up

I have engineered this first strip so that the stripe falls smack in the center of this accent wall. It will create a nice balance around the headboard of the little girl’s bed.

I am using the red light, vertical line of my laser level to ensure this first strip of wallpaper goes up nice and plumb.

Turning an Inside Corner With Wallpaper

When bringing wallpaper around an inside corner in a room, you virtually never should wrap a full sheet around the corner.

That’s because corners are never absolutely straight, walls are never perfectly plumb, wet wallpaper stretches and twists… Coming out of the corner, the outer edge of the paper will never be straight, so the next strip won’t butt up properly. And the strip could be thrown off-plumb, meaning that the design will start tracking up or down the wall. Oh, and you will probably get wrinkles and warps, too.

To prevent all this, you split the strip in two vertically, and allow just 1/16″ or 1/8″ to wrap around the corner. See top photo. This tiny bit of wrap is important, because, if you cut exactly into the corner, you would end up with a visible cut edge, plus gaps in the corner.

Your next strip is then overlapped on top of this narrow wrapped edge, as shown in the second photo.

Note that when you do this, you will cover up and lose some of the design.

To minimize this, I have my clients buy a little extra paper. Then I can use a fresh sheet to split vertically, while matching the pattern as perfectly as possible. Yes, it uses more paper and costs a bit more … but for a visually seamless transition from one wall to the next, that you will be enjoying for the next many years, it is a good pay-off.

This new strip that gets overlapped and hung coming out of the corner … It is important that it be hung plumb. Because if it’s not, then all subsequent strips will fall more and more off-track.

In the last photo, I am using the red line of my laser level to ensure that the right edge of this new wallpaper strip is perfectly level.

Often, this means you have to “adjust” the strip in the corner … and that often means that you will have to trim off some, in order to get it to lie nice and tight in the corner. And, yes, that means losing a bit more of the design.

This is inside corners, pretty much in a nutshell. Of course, there are a lot more details and nuances not covered here.

wrap

overlap

lose pattern

laser level to plumb up

Bibliotheque Install Details – Pt IV – Plumbing Up Coming Out of a Corner

Walls are never straight, and corners are never plumb. This can wreak havoc with wallpaper and wallpaper patterns. But there are ways to deal with that. For instance …

Coming around an inside corner, you want to split your strip of wallpaper vertically, so that it wraps just a tiny bit (1/16″ – 1/8″) around the corner. Then you take the remaining portion of that split strip and overlap it on top of that 1/16″ – 1/8″.

At this point, you have the opportunity to make adjustments for walls that are out of plumb or that have bows or other defects.

In the photo, you see me using my laser level to plumb-up the right edge of the wallpaper strip. This may mean mis-matching the pattern a bit in the corner – a convenient place to hide slight discrepancies.

First Strip = Plumb and Level

Here I am, using my laser level to make sure the center of this wallpaper design hits smack in the middle of the wall, and that the strip is hanging nice and plumb.

Using the Laser Level

Here I am using my laser level to line up my first wallpaper strip, making sure it’s nice and straight and plumb, while also centering it on the spot where the headboard will sit against the wall.

Narrow Strip Coming Out of a Corner

See that narrow 3/8″ wide strip of wallpaper sitting on my table? That is to be my first piece coming out of this corner.

When you hang wallpaper around an inside corner, you don’t wrap it around the turn, but, rather, split the piece vertically so it wraps 1/16″ around the corner. Then the strip that you cut off is hung on the next wall, butted up into the corner. This avoids twists and wrinkles and bubbled areas caused by walls and corners that are not perfectly straight or plumb.

But when the piece that is to be the first strip on the new wall is this narrow, it presents problems, because it’s very likely to not hang straight, and you can’t hang the next strip of wallpaper against a crooked edge because you will get gaps and overlaps.

Adding to the dilemma is that this narrow strip had already been pasted. I had finished for the day, and intended to hang the window wall to the left the next day. The strip was already pasted, but I couldn’t hang it because of the aforementioned issues, plus, you are supposed to hang a whole wall at a time, because all of the strips have to “meld” together – you can’t hang a wet piece against a dry piece.

My solution was to wash the paste off this narrow strip, and hang it up to dry overnight. I just had to hope that the water would not cause it to expand too much, or warp, or other.

The next day, I pasted this narrow 3/8″ wide strip, along with the strip that would be placed next to it. Then I hung them together, as if they were all one piece of wallpaper. That way, I could work them into the corner snugly, and keep the seam between them nice and tight.

When coming out of corners, it’s common for the wallpaper to go off-plumb, because the corner might be out of wack. So you can (barely) see the red line of my laser level on the left edge of the strip of wallpaper, ensuring that the new strip falls plumb.