Bird and Blossom Chinoiserie in Adjoining Entry Niche

Tnis is a niche over some built-in storage , just to the left of the accent wall I blogged about yesterday. Here it’s been primed with Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime wallpaper primer , and I’ve striped dark paint under where the seams of this black paper will fall.

Done. An oval mirror will be hung in the center of this space.

The pattern is in the Ronald Redding line by York , and is a non-woven material that is easy to install , and that will strip off the wall easily and in one piece with no damage to your wall when you redecorate .
The home is in the Meyerland area of Houston .

Cream on Black Chinoiserie Accent Wall

Accent wall below staircase in a sitting area of a living room in a Meyerland ( Houston ) home that was flooded during Hurricane Harvey in 2017. It took five years for the homeowners to raise and restore the home, and settle in. They are waiting for the wallpaper before choosing furnishings for this room.

But the colors of the wallpaper meld beautifully with decor in other areas, such as the family room on the other side of this wall , which has colors of cream , tan , and dark grey in furniture , flooring , and accessories .

The pattern is called Bird and Blossom Chinoiserie (a term that refers to Chinese / Asian style decorating ). Its in the Ronald Redding line by York. It’s a non-woven material that can be installed by either paste the wall or paste the paper methods. It will strip off the wall easily when you want to redecorate later.

Cole & Son Florencecourt in Meyerland (Houston) Powder Room

Before, primed and ready for wallpaper.

After.

I love the muted charcoal-and-cream colors with the marble vanity top. In addition, there are small brown flecks here and there, which help tie it to the floor tiles and the burnished gold mirror.

The pattern has a slight “raised ink” texture – hard to see here, but lovely in person.

This is a non-woven material. It can be hung with the paste-the-wall method, but I wanted the flexibility created by pasting the paper.

Cole and Son is a British company. Most everything they make is very nice.

Simple Tan on White Foliage Design Brightens Hall Bathroom

Nothing wrong with this pattern – just outdated. And starting to fail after more than 20 years on the wall.

The new selection is fresh and crisp, and coordinates nicely with the woodwork and tile colors.

This bathroom had some Hellishly narrow and awkward spaces to maneuver around in.

After 20+ years in this Willowbend / Meyerland neighborhood, the homeowners are updating several rooms in their home.

With the new wallpaper, this hall bathroom is modernized, yet still in keeping with it’s ’60’s era classic ranch style roots.

Not Afraid To Be Daring and Dashing!

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.

Monkey

Shimmery Dragon Glass Bead Wallpaper on Bedroom Accent Wall

Just about everything in this gal’s new home is glimmer, mirror, crystal, and sheen. So no question that the accent wall in the master bedroom should be the same.

This design is printed on a pearlescent silver background, and features swirling dragon motifs made of tiny real glass beads. Viewed with light coming from an angle (window on the south wall, for instance, or a bedside table lamp), the wallpaper has a real glitter effect.

The wallpaper is by Osborn & Little, and is in the line by designer Matthew Williamson. It is a vinyl-covered non-woven material, and can be hung by either the paste-the-wall method or the paste-the-paper method (which is what I opted for).

The home is in the Braeswood / Meyerland / Braes Heights / Willowbend / Willow Meadows neighborhood of south west Houston. This area was heavily devastated by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The home sits right on the Buffalo Bayou, and was built after that disaster, and situated quite high up.

Replacing One Wall

I hung this sunburst medallion wallpaper in an entry in west Meyerland a year or two ago. Originally, there was a doorway in the middle of this wall that led into the adjoining room. The homeowners had the doorway closed off, and the opening was replaced with a new piece of Sheetrock. This needed to be covered with wallpaper.

New wallpaper could not be patched in, and the damaged areas along the wainscoting could not be readhered, so new paper had to be bought to cover the entire wall – as well as a section over the entry door.

The second and third photos show where the contractor had pulled the paper away from the wall. As you can see, it took some of the primer and the paint below it, too. I wish I knew what the contractor did to have this result, because when I stripped off the rest of the wallpaper, it came off easily and left the wall surface below it perfectly intact.

I suspect that he just yanked the paper, or possibly used heat or some weird chemical. The proper way to strip off wallpaper is to wet it, then separate the top, inked layer from the bottom, substrate layer, and pull the top layer gently off the wall. Then you take a sponge and bucket of water and wet the backing. Once that water reactivates the paste, the paper backing will come away from the wall easily and with little-to-no damage to the wall.

I also suspect that this paper was hung over KILZ Original oil-based primer, which was a superb primer because it stuck tight and because it was not affected or reactivated by the water used to soak the wallpaper backing. Unfortunately, the formula for that product changed due to EPA regulations, and wallpaper paste will no longer stick to it. These days, I’m using two alternative primers – both water-based, and I am curious to see how they hold up when wallpaper is stripped off them.

Back to today’s job … Once I got the paper off, I used joint compound (“mud”) to smooth over the uneven areas between the contractor’s stripping job and mine, then sanded smooth, wiped free of dust, primed, and then hung the new paper.

The wallpaper pattern is by Thibaut, and is called Bahia. It’s a non-woven product, and is designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate. As you can see, neither the contractor nor I had success with that. The tried and true separate-the-layers-and-saturate-the-backing-with-water method was the solution.

Low End Wallpaper – Not So Bad This Time

I’ve said it before – these budget-friendly, pre-pasted, manila paper-baked solid vinyl wallpaper products are generally not good quality, and the Norwall brand is about at the bottom of the list. In fact, I often will decline to hang it. Do a Search here on those terms, or click the Page to the right “Stay Away From … ” for more info.

However, this homeowner, a Meyerland neighborhood (Houston) victim of the Hurricane Harvey flooding, and a client for whom I had worked back in the ’90’s, really loved the pattern, as well as the price-point. And she wanted her entry to look as it had before the flood ravaged her home.

I was pleasantly surprised. The paper went up OK, and the seams looked fine. It’s possible that the company has improved its product. But it’s more likely that my new installation method helped.

Instead of following the manufacturer’s instructions to run the paper through a water tray, which makes the material too wet and promotes bubbling, and instead of pasting the back of the paper, which turns it into a gummy mess, I tried something new. I used a spray bottle to lightly spritz fresh water onto the back; this activated the paste, but was not so much water that it would cause bubbling or seam curling or over-expansion of the material. I booked the paper and put it in a black trash bag to sit a few minutes.

Next I rolled paste onto the wall. I started out using a very faint coat, but found that a tad more worked better. I used a brush to cut the paste into the edges and around the floor and ceiling.

When I took the very slightly dampened paper to the wall and smoothed it against the lightly pasted surface, it adhered very nicely. It was pretty easy to smooth into position, although there was some twisting of some strips, which could have been a problem in a room that required more strips next to one another.

Usually these inexpensive vinyl papers grow bubbles, because, as they dry, there is nowhere for the moisture to go (because it can’t pass through the vinyl surface), so blisters form. But today was very little bubbling.

Best of all, the seams looked good. I didn’t get any of the raised edges that are so unattractive, and that allow moisture / humidity to penetrate and cause the backing to swell and pull away from the wall.

I am not saying that I was happy with this paper. But it was a lot better than I expected. And I hope that it will continue to look good for years to come.

Cracks in Drywall Due to Ground/Foundation Shifting

Here are pictures of cracks and wrinkles in the drywall, and also in the wallpaper over the drywall. These are caused by the foundation of the home shifting, which is pretty common in Houston, and particularly in this Meyerland neighborhood.

Rain, and the lack of rain, as well as other factors, cause the ground to swell or shrink, and that causes the home’s foundation to move – and that causes cracks like these to appear. As weather conditions (and the conditions within the ground) change, the cracks can close up again.

I used a Stanley knife to cut out the bulged areas, and then placed mesh drywall tape over the cracks, followed by joint compound, which I sanded smooth and primed, before hanging the wallpaper. The mesh tape is supposed to flex a little, and will hopefully absorb some of the strain the next time the house shifts, so, with a little luck, the cracks will not reappear.

A Really Nice Textured Faux Grasscloth

I’m not a fan of grasscloth (read the page to the right), but there are wonderful alternatives – this product is about my favorite. The layers of string on the surface provide the texture that is so popular today, while the printed pattern mimics real grasscloth. Because the design is printed, it can be matched from strip to strip, so you don’t see the abrupt breaks between panels as you do with real grasscloth. It also has a bit of a protective coating, so it is more durable than the real stuff, too.

My only complaint is that this darker colorway tends to have some shading / paneling issues. In the fourth photo, you can see that the strip on the left is darker than the strip on the right. This happened on every strip, every bolt of paper, and some were worse than others; I had to discard two strips because of this. Interestingly enough, I have hung the lighter tan version of this material and did not have the shading issues.

I hung this in the hall bathroom of a home in the Meyerland area of Houston, that had been damaged by the flood from Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The house is a veritable temple to Mid-Century Modern, and the homeowner wanted the wallpaper to be era-appropriate to the style of the home.

This wallpaper pattern is by Wallquest, in their EcoChic line, and is in the Grass Effects book. It 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.