Here’s a shot of what the wallpaper pattern looks like.
As I install ed paper moving to the left, this poor guy got his head cut off by the window molding . Well, with wallpaper – that’s just how it goes. But I knew I could make it look better.
I saved the piece that got trimmed off at the window . If there wasn’t such a piece, I would have dug around in the pile of scraps and found something with a design that would work.
I cut out the bird’s head and torso , trimming around the right side of the body, but leaving the gold background color on the left side, so it would cover up the dark body area next to the molding, as you see in the top photo. Here I’m testing it out, to be sure the new head meets up with the chest and shoulders of the bird on the wall. I can tweak things, if need be. Before applying this to the wall, I used black chalk to color the white edge of the wallpaper patch , so it wouldn’t stand out against the black feathers on the bird on the wall.
Then I pasted the piece lightly and appliquéd it on top of the bird on the wall. Looks pretty darned good! It’s not a perfect re-creation of that pattern motif. But, from a few feet away, the casual observer will never notice that the bird’s not perfect. (Although, next time, I will round the head a little better, because that pointy triangle at the top is bugging me a bit)
The wallpaper pattern is called Royal Garden and is by Mind The Gap . See previous posts for more information.
Yesterday’s post focused on centering two desired motifs in between two windows. Today’s post is about centering a dominant design element on the most visible / important wall in a room. In this case, it’s the only wall that doesn’t have any windows or doors on it, and also the homeowners will have a credenza or other similar piece of furniture placed against this wall. This is also the first wall you see when walking into the living room from the front door. Note that the trim carpenter has set the bar , by placing his molding panels smack in the center of the wall. And they’re perfectly equally sized, too. Now I’m challenged, and have got to get my birds down the center of that wall. 🙂 In the photo, I’ve started applying my wallpaper primer to the wall on the right. That’s my paint roller tray hooked on top of my ladder .
For reference, here’s the finished wall. The other three walls will be papered, as well. When I’m getting ready to hang wallpaper, I want to see what the overall pattern looks like. This, plus a little math, helps me know how to place the various motifs. In this case, to be sure (if possible) that no bird gets his head cut off at the ceiling, nor his feet cut off at the chair rail or floor. All that depends, of course, on the length of the wallpaper pattern repeat , as it factors into the height of the wall. Getting back to viewing the overall pattern on my phone – that’s often quite a bit more difficult that it should be, because most vendors just show a small portion of the design . And if the homeowner has purchased a sample, it also shows just an 8″ x 10″ or so section of the pattern. I want to see the whole design as it plays out across a wall, in what I call a room set view. If you check enough vendor websites, you may find such an image. But … quite often they’ve styled the photo with furniture (OK, that’s good, because it helps you see the perspective and scale of the pattern). But they’ll also hang artwork on the wall, add vases full of sprawling flowers , all kinds of stuff that occludes the view. But, most of the time, I’m able to find an image that shows what the whole pattern looks like on a real wall. Then I can determine what I think is the most dominant part of the design , or maybe some other feature that I want to put the viewer’s focus on. In this case (see photo above), I definitely felt that the black bird with his white tail feathers , as well as his black buddy just above him, were the most eye-catching . So those are the guys that I wanted to put in the horizontal center of the wall .
This pattern comes as a 3-panel set , and has a very long pattern repeat of nearly 40″. Here I am laying it out on the home’s entry floor (helpful that no one’s home and won’t need to go up and down the stairs or through this hall any time soon!). I’m using yardsticks (no, I don’t use no stinkin’ tape measurers – will be a blog post on that at some point) to plot how the pattern motifs fit in with the height of the wall, and hopefully not cut off anybody’s head or feet. The horizontal yardsticks are marking where I want the pattern to hit the top of the wall, as well as the bottom / chair rail.
Back to the two black birds . Here I’m discerning the vertical center of the birds. It’s a bit tricky, because the all black bird doesn’t sit perfectly centered above the other bird; he’s a bit off to the left. So you have to figure out what you think is the most pleasing center point of these two birds. I have the yardstick standing on edge to help find that point. (Try doing that with a tape measure!)
The yardstick is 9 5/8″ from the right edge of the wallpaper. Factor in that the yardstick is 1/4″ wide, and half goes to the left side and half to the right, I’m going to add 1/8″ (half of 1/4″) to my measurement. So my measurement from the right edge of the paper to the center point is now 9 3/4″.
Here I’ve measured the width of the wall and determined the center point. Note arrow marked “Mid.” But my center motif isn’t in the center of the strip of wallpaper, nor at either edge. It’s 9 3/4″ over to the left of the right edge. (Note, the wallpaper is a standard 20.5″ wide, which makes the middle of the panel at 10.25″. But that’s not where the center of the design is. So always focus on the center of the dominant motif , not the center of the wallpaper.) Back to placing my first strip … To keep the birds at the center point of the wall, I need to pull the right edge of the wallpaper over 9 3/4″ to the right. Marked with a pencil line and my word “ici” (French for “here.”) Side note – always make your marks on the wall and wallpaper with pencil or chalk . Never use ink or marker or wax crayon , as these substances are known to bleed through wallpaper and stain the surface. Do a search here to read more.
Here I’ve placed the vertical red beam of my laser level 9 3/4″ to the right of the wall’s mid point. This is where I’ll butt up my strip of wallpaper. The black and white bird should fall right at the center of the wall.
Just to be sure, before pasting or hanging the strip, I brought it to the wall to see how what I determined was the center of the motif, actually lines up with the center of the wall (“mid”). All seems good.
Here it is done. Laser level marking the mid point of the wall. As I mentioned, the two birds aren’t lined up perfectly symmetrically, with the smaller one sitting a bit to the left. Don’t stew over it … choose which part of which bird you want to base the center on, and go with it. All that said, standing across the room, the first three panel set I hung looked good – but just appeared a tad off-center to me (no pic). Like a half an inch. TBH, the mid point of the wall was at the center of the larger bird. But, because the bird has an uneven shape, and because of that smaller bird sitting above him and a smidgen off to the left, the whole scenario did appear just a teeny bit off-center. I kept thinking, what’s a half an inch? Especially when the homeowners are going to place furniture in front of it, plus a vase full of sprawling flowers. No one would notice anything off-kilter – except me. I debated a while, and finally decided to pull the three strips off and re-hang them 1/2″ to the right. This is tricky, because the wallpaper can be firmly stuck to the wall by now, and removing it could dislodge the primer and paint underneath it. Or pulling the paper off could stretch it, so that it might not fit the wall correctly, or the pattern match might get skewed. After testing to be sure the three strips were not irrevocably stuck to the wall, I removed them and re-hung them, one by one, this time butting up against the laser level red line moved 1/2″ to the right.
Here’s a close-up of how the laser level beam lines up with the center of the wall, the molding, and the wallpaper birds .
Finished wall again. See how balanced it looks to have those two dark birds lined up over the center of the wall and the panels below. The birds are also nicely balanced vertically, and no one got his head chopped off at the ceiling, or lost any feathers at the bottom of the wall. Note: We usually plot wallpaper motifs to hover just below the ceiling. But in a room with a wainscoting like this, it’s assumed that the wainscoting / chair rail are closer to eye-level, and thus it’s the main place you want to make sure the motifs don’t get compromised (if possible). In other words, you would position your motifs relative to the chair rail, rather than the ceiling .
Pulling off those three strips and rehanging was successful in large part due to a solid surface under the wallpaper. First, the builder ‘s paint was good quality and was applied over a sound surface – no dust , and no PVA primer . Also is that the wallpaper primer I use is designed to do many tasks. One of those is to facilitate removal of wallpaper. For most surfaces and wallpapers , I like Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime . The wallpaper itself was a factor, too, as the non-woven substrates are tear-resistant , and don’t (or shouldn’t) expand when tugged on. They’re designed to strip off the wall easily and with no damage to the wall when you redecorate later. Lots of other advantages for NW materials, too.
The pattern is called Royal Garden and the manufacturer is Mind The Gap , out of Transylvania, of all places. The home is in the West University area of central Houston . installer
Re my post from May 12 … Here’s the living room before the wallpaper went up. Note the windows and the short space above them. The wallpaper that’s being used comes as a sort of mural , in a 3-panel set . Each panel has a different design . The part that drops below the window gets cut off, and really can’t be used anywhere else. See my post of May 12 for more information. I never throw any scraps away until the job is over, so I saved the bottom parts from under the windows, which were about 8′ long.
Here is that wall area done.
Look at how nicely the birds with the light colored tails fall around either side of these two windows. It gives a nice, balanced look. (I centered another motif on the opposite wall (see post from May 12), so, as the pattern worked its way around the room, the birds just happened to fall pretty evenly on either side of the windows. It was a fortunate happenstance.) But, with the 3-panel set working its way around the room, those same birds with the light colored tails were going to fall between the windows. This means that we’d have those birds appearing three times on a very visible section of the same wall. Even yuckier, if you look at the bird above the left window, as these two birds fell down between the windows, they would be pulled to the left of center, and also were 15″ wide, whereas the space between the windows was 12.5″ wide. This means that the one on the left would get his plumage cut off, and the one on the right would have his head cut off. And the tree branches they’re sitting on would be far off to the right. Not awful – that’s the way the pattern falls, right? But I knew I could make it look better. So I cut off and discarded the portion of wallpaper that would fall below and in between the windows. There was an empty wall space in between the windows. Not shown in the photo.
Instead, I took one of those scraps from the trash pile, that was cut off from under a window on another side of the room. It was too short to go from wainscoting to ceiling – but that was fine, because the area over the windows already had wallpaper on it. This panel had birds that spanned 13″ wide – so just a smidge of one’s beak had to be cut off. And, the red bird was one of the homeowner’s favorites. I cut the length of the panel so that the red bird would sit at the same height on the wall as the same bird in other parts of the room. See 2nd and 3rd photos above. After making sure the space between the windows was actually 12.5″ wide from top to bottom, I trimmed the panel of wallpaper around the bird motifs, to 12.5″ wide. Then I placed it in between the two windows. Now the two birds are perfectly centered in the space between the window – and the branch they’re clinging to, too. Again, the panel was too short to reach the ceiling. But that was OK, because there was already the piece with the light colored bird up there. Problem was, the pattern of the light colored bird’s panel didn’t match up with the pattern on the new piece I just put between the windows. The tree branch coming down from the ceiling didn’t match up with the branch just above the red bird. Sorry, no pics of this. So I overlapped the strips where they met. To disguise the pattern mis-match, I took a scrap of paper that had a tree branch of the same color, and cut a “branch” of appropriate size, and appliquéd it on top of the wallpaper, so it connected the tree branch on the top with the branch below it. There were still some sharply un-matched pattern motifs, so I took some more scrap wallpaper and cut out a flower and pasted it over. That’s the flower on the left, right below the top of the window. If you look really closely, you’ll see that the frilly white leaves on the left, and the green leaves on the right, don’t match up 100% perfectly. But, heck – no one’s going to be scrutinizing or noticing that. Much better to have the homeowner’s favorite red bird and its mate nicely centered between the windows.
The wallpaper pattern is called Royal Garden and is by Mind The Gap . See other posts for more information. installer houston
North wall before. The walls had a tad of texture, left by the thick nap roller used by the painters . I usually like the walls to be perfectly smooth , so I do a lot of skim-floating (do a Search here to read more) and sanding to smooth the walls. But in a large room like this, that can add one to two days, so it ups the install price . The existing wall texture is pretty light, and this brand of wallpaper is fairly heavy . Plus it’s a busy pattern . So it’s not likely that anyone would notice a little texture under the wallpaper . After discussing with the homeowner, we decided to skip the smoothing time, expense, and dusty mess, and simply go with a primer.
Here’s the primer I like under wallpaper . By Roman , called Pro 977 Ultra Prime . It will stick to the light gloss on the existing paint . And it provides a good surface for the wallpaper to adhere to. Wallpaper primers are designed to withstand the tension put on seams as the paper dries and shrinks , and to hold the edges of the paper nice and tight to the wall . A good primer also allows for sliding the strip around on the wall , or pulling off and repositioning , if needed. And makes it easier to remove / strip paper when it’s time to redecorate .
Finished north wall. Note I centered the dominant motifs ( black and lg round white birds ) on the wall, which looks nice with the carpenter ‘s expertly centered molding panels below. More on this in a future post.
Laser level helping get bird motifs centered on wall .
South wall before
South wall done.
Note birds centered between the windows . More on how I did this in a future post.
This pattern comes as a sort of mural, in a 3-panel set. One roll = 3 individual panels. Each panel is 20.5″ wide x about 10′ high. Because of the wainscoting , the wallspace to be covered with wallpaper was only about a bit less than 7′ high. This means that at least 3′ of the strip would be cut off and not used. In addition, the design has a pattern repeat of more than 3′. This is way longer than most, and it means that we can’t count on using the portions cut off at the top or bottom anywhere else. So, like I said, into the trash pile they go. Important to note, when calculating how much to purchase, with this long pattern repeat and 3-panel set, even for shorter areas over doors and windows (19″), you can only plan on getting one strip out of each panel. So, again, a whole lot of this material will go to waste. And, again, another reason to let the installer calculate how much to buy. Again – it’s not about square feet! Moving on … After looking up the pattern on the company’s website, to get an idea of the full scope of the design , in the photo above, here I am, laying out the goods on a wide stretch of floor space in my client’s house. I’m comparing the height of the wallspace with the length of the pattern repeat, and the placement of each bird – so that once the wallpaper is up on the wall, no bird gets his head or feet or bum cut off. Sometimes, the math and the placement just don’t work out, and someone gets chopped in half. But here everything works out, and the birds will fall nicely and fully intact, down the height of the wall. Additional thoughts … Don’t forget to add two inches (2″) to both top and bottom (total of 4″) of your strip, to allow trimming at ceiling and baseboard / wainscoting , and to accommodate un-level ceilings and floors, and wonky walls. Also, in most cases, we installer s like to place a key motif or design element at the top of the wall. But when there’s wainscoting, like this in this room, the eye is drawn more to the bottom of the wall, which is the wainscoting. So here’s where I focused on placing the most dominant and visible birds. Also, if the dimensions worked out so you did have to end up with someone getting his head cut off, you’d put that at the top of the wall. And keep the whole / intact motifs / bird(s) at the level of the wainscoting / or, closest to eye level .
Close up of the design. This pattern is called Royal Garden , and it comes in several colorways . It’s by Mind The Gap , who is a company pretty well known for innovative / adventurous ways to dress up your walls . Most MTG wallpapers are packaged differently from standard papers . So, again – don’t order until the installer has measured and calculated . Their wallpapers are on a non-woven substrate , which can be hung by pasting the paper or by pasting the wall. I found that pasting the paper was the best option. More on installation techniques in a future post . Most non-wovens are stain-resistant and tear-resistant . And they are designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece, with no / minimal damage to the wall when you redecorate some years later. One more thing about MTG wallpapers … Once you unroll them, and especially if you roll them backwards to get rid of the ” memory ” – the desire to stay tightly rolled up. If you unroll them, they unfurl and get stiff , and they spread out all over your room , and are difficult to corral for measuring , trimming , pasting , etc. All that considered, I do like this company. Mostly because of their innovative designs . They’re based in Transylvania , hence the bat on their label . If that doesn’t mean anything to you young ‘un’s , look up the book / movie / story / legend Dracula . And also because of (relative) ease of working with their material. See future posts for some techniques that were necessary with this brand . The home is in the West University Place / West U neighborhood of Houston
Before. The family’s interior designer helped them choose the deep blue color for the other three walls .
Done. The colors in the wallpaper coordinate beautifully with the wall paint . The desk will sit against this wall, as well as a flat screen TV and/or computer monitor screen. The look is encompassing and stately, and perfect for a room that will foster concentration and decision-making . That’s my work table in the foreground – covered with a blanket for overnight.
Unlike actual natural silk or grasscloth products, where the seams and separate panels are very visible, this man-made vinyl material has a pattern that can be matched , so you don’t see the breaks between panels . Although the texture is subtle, you can see its warmth clearly from across the room .
The manufacturer did a super job of mimicking the look of real silk cloth wallcovering . But this vinyl option on a non-woven / paste the wall backing is much more resistant to stains , easier to install , and will strip off the wall easily when it’s time to redecorate .
The brand is JV Italian Living . The paper was a little different in that the strips were 39.5″ wide, whereas most papers are 20.5″ or 27″ wide. So a bit more tricky for short stuff me to work with. It was nice to have the non-woven backing. But note that it was fragile and difficult to cut through. See other post for other issues. installer houston
Originally, this powder room was painted a bold orange . The homeowner thought that was what she wanted, and so lived with it for a few years. But yearned for something more lively and fun. In this photo, I’ve skim-floated and sanded the walls smooth , primed , and am now ready to hang wallpaper .
Just – WOW! Wallpaper really perks the room up. This pattern injects both color and visual movement. And a big smile on your face!
Vanity / sink wall .
The wall to the right will be painted a dark pewter metallic . The homeowner has three heirloom mirrors in the cathedral style , that are tall and skinny, and fill out this wall perfectly .
Close-up
Rolling bolts out on my work table, to get dimensions , pattern repeat , pattern placement , check for any irregularities, and etc.
This wallpaper is called Brushstroke Floral and is by York , one of my preferred brands. It’s non-woven material and can be hung by the paste the wall method , or, as I usually prefer, paste the paper . There were some issues with this paper; please refer to future posts . The home is in west Houston . installer This wallpaper pattern is by York, and was bought from my favorite source for good quality, product knowledge, expert service, and discounted price – Dorota Hartwig at Sherwin-Williams in the Rice Village off Kirby. (713) 529-6515. She is great at helping you find just the perfect paper! Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her. Call first, as her hours fluctuate. My clients love working with her!
The homeowners have added classic paneled wainscoting at the bottom of the walls, and a tad more decorative molding around the door and window , plus crown molding . I love all these elegant touches! Yet, the room still lacks … well, it’s just lacking.
But not lacking anymore. … Enter wallpaper! Specifically this cheery overall floral pattern in bright pinks and oranges and greens . That’s my work table set up in the center .
Bam! Now the room is full of energy ! Perfect for a family with young pre-school children .
The flowers just look to me like they’re smiling!
The walls were smooth enough, so only needed a wallpaper primer . I like Roman Pro 977 , Ultra Prime .
I don’t know why WordPress makes it so hard to rotate or flip an image, but I’ve given up. Y’all’ll just have to read it upside down. The brand is Rifle Paper , which is made by York . Many of Rifle’s papers are the user-friendly non-woven / paste the wall material . But this one is a traditional paper type wallpaper , which is install ed by pasting the back of the paper .
This very popular design is called Garden Party , Rifle Paper # RI5119 . I like this brand and material . installer houston meyerland
This is a short wall in the back of a powder room . The sloped ceiling is under the stairs . The dark stripe is on the wall under where the seams will fall, to help prevent white from showing at the seams . Do a search here to read more about that. We’re hanging wallpaper from right to left. The first strip of wallpaper was hung on the right. The second strip is to the left. As you can see, the second strip is narrower than the first one. That’s because you don’t wrap wallpaper around a corner. Because walls are never plumb and corners are never straight . As an example, just look at the top edge there, where the ceiling bows down more like a banana than a straight line . But that banana curve is a topic for another post. For now, we’re talking about the corner to the right. You don’t want to wrap wallpaper around corners, because, if the corner or drywall is not plumb , the left edge of the wallpaper will hang off-plumb , and your design will start tracking either up or down the wall. Also, if the wall / corner is not straight, the left edge of the wallpaper will not be straight, either. And that means that your next strip of wallpaper will not butt up perfectly with it. There will be gaps and overlaps . You can also end up with wrinkles and bubbles in the corner itself . So what you do is split that strip on the left . Measure the width from the previous strip into the corner, add 1/8″ (or 1/4″), and trim the strip vertically , taking off the portion that needs to go on the wall to the left. Install the wider strip, and it will wrap 1/8″ or 1/4″ around the corner. Look carefully at the second photo below and you can see that. The narrow strip that you cut off will be placed on the new wall, overlapping that 1/8″ or 1/4″ wrap. Note that, because you’re overlapping the strips, you will lose some of the pattern, so the squirrel and cherries won’t match up perfectly. I hate that, so I have my clients purchase a little extra paper, so, instead of using that trimmed-off strip, I can cut a new strip, and trim that new strip vertically so that the pattern matches as perfectly as possible.
Here is the wall with the sloped ceiling wallpaper in place. Now we’re ready to start hanging that wall to the left.
Here’s my freshly cut narrow strip, about to go in place. The blue plastic tape at the top is to keep paste from smearing onto the wallpaper on the ceiling.
A narrow strip like this is not very stable, and likely to not hang perfectly straight , so the left edge might not be perfectly straight. Also, pushing the strip into the crooked corner may make it conform to the undulations of the corner. And, again, that will render the left edge to not be straight.
Because I cut a new strip (instead of using the strip left over from trimming the piece vertically), the pattern matches perfectly.
But – whoops! As we move down the wall, short as it is, because the wall and corner are not plumb or straight, the pattern starts to not match. Note that the idea is to match the pattern as perfectly as possible at eye level, and let it go off in less noticeable places – like toward the ceiling or floor.
Trimming off the excess at the ceiling . Note that this brand of non-woven wallpaper material is much more fragile than most, and so you see that the trimming razor blade has snagged and torn some of the paper. A scissors will help clean up this jagged edge.
Note that the pattern on the plumb wall is not going to match up with that on the sloped ceiling. Also, remember that we matched the pattern as it went up the back wall. But as you turn a corner and start a new wall, the pattern won’t match at the ceiling. That’s to be expected. There are a few tricks to help disguise some of these mis-matches, which are discussed in other blog posts.
So here I am, hanging the next strip of paper, a full-width strip, against the narrow strip in the corner. My full-width strip is much more stable, so the right edge is pretty straight.
But as it butts up against the narrow strip to the right, you see some gaps …
… and some overlaps.
So I’m gently pulling that narrow strip away from the wall. If you’ve properly primed and prepped the wall, and used adequate paste , and kept that paste wet, and not waited too long … you should be able to do this easily, without damaging either the wallpaper or the surface underneath. Now you can manipulate the narrow strip (which is flexible because it’s both narrow and because the material itself is malleable), a bit to the the right or left to eliminate those gaps and overlaps.
In order to get this narrow strip to butt up against the full-width strip, the bottom portion is repositioned and moved toward the right. And you can see that it’s starting to wrap around the corner. Naah. Don’t want that. We want the paper to stop right in the corner.
So I’m going to use a straightedge , snap-off trimmer blade , and scissors to carefully trim off the overage.
And here you go. Note how pulling this strip to the right also corrected the slight pattern mis-match . Funny how crooked corners work!
The brand is called Home Style and is from the U.K. It’s a vinyl -coated paste the wall product and is more resistant to stains than traditional paper-papers. Non-woven wallpapers are also designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece, with no damage to the wall, when you redecorate . The home is in the Garden Oaks area of Houston . installer
Before. This is a very small under-the-stairs powder room that was carved out of minimal space during an update and slight expansion of a 1940’s home in the Garden Oaks neighborhood of Houston , maybe 20 years ago. The homeowners have enjoyed the white daisy on dark wallpaper for a long time, but are ready for something fresh and fun . That curious window-thingie there was part of the garage wall in the original home floorplan .
Here it is finished. So nice that the sink and toilet are not in this tiny room, and that the door swings outward , instead of inward, as most bathroom s do.
I started with the back wall, which is the first thing you see when you open the door. I’m happy with the placement of the animals , as they all appear intact as you look across the wall. Meaning, that no one got his head or rear end cut off on this focal wall . I’ve striped darker paint on the wall where the seams will fall, to prevent white from showing at the seams. Do a search here to read other posts about this trick . Note the bow in the joint where the back wall meets up with the sloped segment of wall. This is pretty typical. Not a big deal with paint. But it means that the portion of wallpaper that goes up the sloped wall / ceiling will have a very slight pattern mis-match where it meets up with that bowed part of the horizontal joint .
Here is the wallpaper going up the sloped ceiling , which is the part under the stairs . Note that you don’t run one long strip of wallpaper up and across all these surfaces. For every corner, the wallpaper should wrap 1/8″ or so around the corner. Then you start with a new strip, matching the pattern as best you can (remember that bowed joint!), with about an inch of overlap, which then you trim off off the excess . This enables the paper to fit tightly into the corner / joint. Otherwise, you would end up with wrinkles and puckers and areas where the paper is not tight to the wall. Starting with a new strip of paper also allows you to make sure your new strip is hanging straight and plumb . Often you lose a bit of pattern match , but usually not much that anyone would notice.
At top of photo, continued up the ceiling and onto the flat portion of ceiling . Here is where the third section of wallpaper is cut and overlapped and trimmed into the joint. Note that the pattern on the vertical walls won’t match up with the pattern on the sloped wall .
The homeowners are from Scotland , and told me that these forest inhabitants are common and beloved over there. Her parents are regularly visited by red fox es, and feed them. Hedgehog , owl , deer , rabbit , squirrel , quail , all are denizens of the Scottish forests . Ditto the mushrooms , ferns , and other plant life .
Here’s that odd little window papered . I positioned the pattern so that it would continue from the wall into the niche as if the wooden molding were not there. The homeowner has a small rectangular mirror that will sit in the left side of the niche .
Close up.
The brand is Home Style and comes from the UK . It’s a flexible non-woven / paste the wall material , and was pretty nice. However, the substrate was hard to trim through, even with a brand new blade . It also wanted to drag a bit, leaving raggedy torn edges if you weren’t meticulously careful while trimming . And the material creased easily .
I generally try to steer clients away from real grasscloth , for many reasons. Please read the link to the right of this page. Luckily, there are lots of alternatives / faux grasscloth options . These paintable ones are new to me, and I really like the idea. They mimic the look of grasscloth nicely. There are plenty of other designs, too, such as stucco , wood , brick , Victorian wainscoting , old fashioned tile ceilings – you name it.
Anaglypta is one brand. The pattern number and specs for the top photo is in the photo above. Paste The Wall is an easy and near fool-proof installation method , and material ( non-woven ).
This is sideways – sorry, I don’t know how to flip the photo. These papers can be painted . Then you end up with a solid color , a very serene look, which many people like. But the solid color of paint can also be wiped with a glaze in a complimentary color , to add depth and accentuate the texture in the pattern . This would make it look a whole lot more like real grasscloth .
Instead of a paste the wall non-woven material, the one above is pre-pasted , which is also a relatively easy material to install .
Here’s a linen look option.
This is just one of several selection books that offer this paintable wallpaper . These papers can be purchased below retail through Dorota at the Sherwin-Williams in the Rice Village ( Houston ). She has 25+ years selling wallpaper and 300+ selection books – and she knows what’s in every one of them! So she can easily and quickly help you find your perfect pattern. Hours fluctuate, so call to make an appointment, and let her know what you’re searching for. (713) 529-6515
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