This young couple hosts the mother / mother-in-law a few times a year, and are lucky enough to have a private spare bedroom for her. To make it special, they wanted to jazz up the area a little. Enter this fun and whimsical wallpaper pattern .The room before was a pretty shade of murky teal – but needed personality and warmth. The wall started out with a light orange peel texture . I skim-floated the wall, and then sanded it smooth . Along the baseboard at the floor , here’s the dust from sanding , along with the sanding sponge I use – this is a modern take on the idea of wrapping sandpaper around a block of wood . I tack painter’s plastic across the wall from ceiling to floor to prevent dust from getting into the room or onto the furniture . Here’s the wall smooth and primed , ready for wallpaper . Since this is a dark wallpaper and I want to be sure that the white wall does not peek out from behind the seams, I stripe dark paint along the wall under where the seams will fall. Because non-woven papers don’t expand when wet with paste , it’s simple to measure the width of your strips and plot out where each seam will fall. Use the laser level as your guide . Do a Search here (upper right hand corner) to read more about this technique. I use craft paint from Texas Art Supply (or any hobby store ), diluted with water from a Gatorade bottle cap , and applied with a scrap of sponge . Further insurance is taking a chalk pastel (never oil pastel – oil bleeds and will stain wallpaper) and running it along the edge of the wallpaper strip – from the backside to avoid staining the surface – to cover the white substrate the wallpaper is printed on. This is to prevent white from peeking out at the seams , which can happen with dark papers. Centering the first strip in the middle of the wall, and using my laser level to ensure the strip is nice and straight and plumb . Note: The strip is not centered on the wall. The dominant pattern element is. Notice that the center of the dominant pattern motif – the white circular flower – is 3.5″ to the right of the left edge. This means that I had to position the left edge of the wallpaper 3.5″ to the left of the center of the wall, in order to get the round white flower to fall down the center of the wall. When you look again at the finished photo, you’ll notice that the white flower falls down the middle of the walls, and that it also appears at equal distance from both the right and left walls. Most people wouldn’t be able to put their finger on this symmetry , but it is something they subconsciously notice , and it lends a feeling of orderliness to the room. As orderly as you can be, that is, with pigs dancing around the meadow dandelions ! Finished accent wall . The three other walls painted in blue were a bit of a surprise, because one would think the more dominant color of green would be used. But with so much green in the wallpaper, green on the walls, too, would have been too much, perhaps. I like the cool feeling that the blue creates . There is plenty of the exact same blue in the wallpaper pattern to tie the walls and wallpaper together. Close up shows the stamped printing technique . You’ve gotta love a frolicking pig in a hand-knitted sweater! This pattern is called Hoppet Folk and is in the Wonderland line by Borastapeter , a Scandinavian company . It’s a nice, sturdy but flexible non-woven material that can be hung via the paste the wall installation method . In addition, this product will strip off the wall easily and in one piece , with no damage to your walls, when it’s time to redecorate. This is a very popular pattern, and I’ve hung it more times than I can count, just in the last two or three years. It does come in other colors – but most people gravitate toward this black version. The townhome is in the Rice Military area of central Houston .
A quarter inch of new pink paint from the sidewalls underlapping onto the wall where I will be hanging a mural will ensure that none of the original tan wall paint will peek out of the corner. All it takes is 1/4″ , which is what I asked the painters to provide. As you can see, someone has a little problem with his measurements and math. This swath is more like 2″-4″. Not a biggie. It’s a matt finish paint, and won’t be difficult for either my smoothing compound or wallpaper paste to adhere to. My first task in this room is to skim-float the wall to smooth over the orange peel texture. That task took a lot longer than hanging the wallpaper!
The wallpaper in the top photo was hung by another installer. They hung the paper right over the slight “orange peel” texture of the wall. It doesn’t look horrible, but I definitely do not like seeing the bumps showing under the paper. In addition, when wallpaper does not have a smooth surface to hold on to, it does not adhere as well as it should. In fact, this paper did have some loose seams.
I hung the paper in the bottom photo, after spending several hours troweling on smoothing compound, sanding, vacuuming, wiping, and priming the wall. There are no unattractive bumps showing under my wallpaper. (The paper is freshly hung in this photo, so there are minor uneven areas from the wet paste.)
While I was finishing up, the homeowner came in and asked, “Is it necessary to smooth the wall before putting up the paper?” I said, “Well, just go look at that other room, and then come back and look at the wall I just did.”
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