Lively Starburst Kitchen Update

Sink / window area, primed and ready for wallpaper.

Pattern nicely centered on this wall and at ceiling line.

Breakfast area window wall before.

I tweaked the pattern just a tad so I could get the dark vertical line along the cabinets on the right, and then also down the left side where this wall meets the painted wall. It makes a nice stopping point for the eye, and it looks so much better than box motifs that might have been chopped in half.

The “star” design adds so much energy and life to this room!

The pattern is in the Sure Strip line of pre-pasted wallpapers by York Wallcoverings. I really like Sure Strip.
Graham & Brown makes a very similar design called Indigo, which is very popular. I like this one better, for lotsa reasons.
The home is in Pearland, a southern suburb of Houston.
Some previous posts show other rooms I did at that same time. The homeowners did a wonderful job of coordinating the colors and themes throughout the home, working with golds and greys.
The wallpaper and design help came from Ballard Designs new physical store on W. Gray in Montrose / River Oaks.
After I arrived to start work, the homeowner decided she wanted the paper behind the refrigerator and also over a bank of cabinets to the right over the ovens. I hadn’t measured for these areas, so we didn’t have enough paper. Ballard could order more, but it would take several weeks to arrive.
So I had the homeowner contact my favorite resource, Dorota Hartwig at Sherwin-Williams on University in the Rice Village. (713) 529-6515. She’s been slingin’ paper for decades, and knew right where to go that could supply the same paper in just a few days.
The additional two bolts arrived yesterday, so I was able to hang them and finish the job today, right on schedule. 🙂
This home suffered extensive water damage to the entire first floor due to burst pipes after the major freeze here in Houston in February 2021. It’s taken these folks more than a year to get their home back together. I was proud to help them get their home and lives back to normal – and a good bit prettier!

Pearland Powder Room Update and Wake Up

Originally, these walls were sorta heavily textured, and painted a drab brown-tan. Here I’ve finished skim-floating the walls to smooth them, and applied my wallpaper primer. Ready for paper!

Flowering tree branches are a popular trend right now, and many companies are making their own versions of it.

Pattern is nicely centered on the sink wall.
The white background really perks the room up, and the light touches of metallic gold in the leaves helps bounce light around this small room.

Close-up. This material has a slight raised ink texture to it. I love the look and feel.

That scribble at the top reads Florence Broadhurst . She was an Australian artist / painter. This line of wallpaper patterns are based on her art and designs.
The pattern is called Branches and the manufacturer is York Wallcoverings, one of my favorite brands.
Pearland is a southern subdivision of Houston.

Finished Pearland Floral Master Bath

Before, with walls skim-floated smooth and primed .

So fun! So much personality and energy!
The door on the left opens to the water closet / potty room, which was papered in a coordinating plain gold, textured material. See previous post for photos.

Long wall behind his & hers vessel sinks.

Tub area, with shower area behind. Wallpapering all these little nooks and crannies took a lot of time!

The opposite side of the tub area.

This non-woven wallpaper is made by York and was purchased from the Ballard Designs showroom in Montrose / River Oaks ( Houston ).
It was nice to work with, the seams are nearly invisible, and it will hold up for many years to come.

Dark, Murky Colors for Pearland Hall Bath

Before.

After

The colors coordinate beautifully with the deep blue/green of the wainscoting.

I love these colors, and the soft matt surface.

Manufacturer is GP&J Baker, a British company.

After 25 years in their Pearland (south Houston) home, the couple was ready for an update. Hubby got his new bathroom a couple of years ago. Today the wife got hers!

The room was ripped out down to the studs. Then they got new: deep soaking tub, shower with geometric tile, toilet, vanity with marble top, burnished brass mirror & light sconces, and … wallpaper!

I love traditional patterns like this. And the dark colors really stand out against the white tile and countertop and floor.

This is a non-woven (synthetic) material, and is designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece when you redecorate. It can be hung via the paste-the-wall method, or the paste-the-paper technique (I usually prefer this option).

Serena & Lily Silvery Grasscloth on Master Bedroom Accent Wall

Every wall of this brand-new home in the Houston ‘burbs is WHITE. The homeowners have opted to warm up their master bedroom – as well as add a little dazzle – with this silver metallic-backed grasscloth by Serena & Lily.

I have striped on the wall with a similar-hued paint, where the seams will fall, so any gaps between strips will not show white wall primer.

Note that with grasscloth, there is no pattern to be matched, so you will always see the seams. The S&L grasscloth I have hung has been pretty homogeneous in color, as you see above, so not much paneling or shading as with other brands and posts I have done.

Still, this was NOT an easy install. See future post(s) for info.

The home is in the brand new Pomona subdivision in Manvel, south of Pearland, both a bit southeast of Houston.

Serena & Lily Feather in Guest Bathroom

Serena & Lily’s “Feather” – a very popular design. In fact, besides today’s install, I have three other clients considering using this pattern.

S&L makes nice paper, and I enjoy hanging it.

This home is in a new subdivision called Pomono, in Manvel, which is south of Pearland (southeast Houston).

Marvel Comics in Kids’ Bathroom

Here’s a finished look at yesterday’s install. It’s in a bathroom adjacent to a bonus room / play room / bunk room for this family’s four young sons.

See yesterday’s post for information about this non-woven wallpaper material.

This wallpaper pattern is by York Wall, and 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, especially during this time of COVID 19.

The home is brand new, and is in the new Pomona development south of Pearland in Manvel (southeast Houston).

Navy & White Schumacher – Finishing Touch to a Harvey Flooded Home

Still not completely finished fixing major damage caused by the devastating flood of 2017, this young couple in the Pearland area of Houston has done virtually all the repairs themselves – and done a mighty fine job of it, too…. Way better than most of the work done by “professionals” that I have seen in “Harvey homes.”

With many details still unfinished, the homeowners wanted just one room that would be done. The lady of the house loves this navy and white fauna/botanical print by Schumacher. She envisioned it on just the back wall of the powder room – the room that everyone sees when walking through the first floor.

You get two strips of paper out of one double-roll bolt, and the wall was 2.5″ wider than two strips of paper. Since Schumacher is expensive, the homeowners decided not to buy another bolt of paper to cover those 2.5 inches, but instead to “float” two strips of paper in the middle of the wall, and then use their DIY skills to build a frame around it.

The frame will be painted a very dark blue. I hate to fall back on the overused term “pop,” but that is exactly what the blue frame will do … It will make the wallpaper pop against the white walls, and also stand out from other design features in the home.

Scroll back a few days and you will see my encounters with a very difficult navy and white paper, also by Schumacher. This one was totally different.

The bird design I worked with today was printed with good quality inks on a non-woven substrate. N-W’s have a degree of fiberglass in their content, and thus are “dimensionally stable.” Among other positive features, they do not expand, and thus you have no wrinkling or waffling or puckers.

This paper went up very nicely.

Although, in two of the photos, true to reputation, you can see printing defects. Just par for the course, if you buy a Schumacher product

When the homeowner saw the finished job, she almost broke down into tears – one room finally complete and pretty and all reminders of the flood gone.

It was an honor to help this couple get to this one small milestone.

Cole & Son “Woods” in Pearland Laundry Room

North corner walls, originally textured.

North corner walls, smoothed.

North corner walls, papered.

South corner walls, smoothed.

South corner walls, papered.

Close up of paper.

This very popular wallpaper pattern is by Cole & Son, and is called “Woods.” I have hung it in the black-on-white many times (do a Search here – upper right), but this is the first time to do it in this softer colorway. The décor in this home is all soft and muted greys and taupes, with a lot of natural materials (wood, stone) tossed in, so this pattern and color are a perfect compliment.

The wallpaper material is called non-woven, which has a high fiberglass content. This means it doesn’t expand when wet with paste, so there is no booking time – meaning you can hang each strip as soon as it is pasted. In fact, you can paste the wall and dry-hang the strips, if you choose. Another advantage of non-wovens is that they are dimensionally-stable, and do not expand when wet with paste, like paper wallpapers do. Very handy when measuring and laying out the room.

A disadvantage of non-wovens is that they are prone to staining and blushing. This is where the paper looks like it is wet, but it never dries and disappears. Certain pastes (880, 234) are known to cause staining on these materials, as well as too much pressure while installing, or wetting the paper with water.

This laundry room is in a newish home in Pearland, a suburb in south Houston.

Water Color-y Mural In a Baby Girl’s Nursery – Accent Wall

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Here’s a delightful, softly colorful wall treatment for a soon-to-be-born baby girl. I love the way the flowers look fluid, as if they were brush strokes of water color. It is a mural, made up of six panels, rather than a typical wallpaper with a repeating design motif.

I hung this on one accent wall for behind the crib in a nursery of a newish home in Pearland. The wallpaper was bought on-line, and it came with no label, no instructions, no nothing. The homeowner told me name of the website, but – dang it! – I forgot the site and the brand name. 😦 I suspect that this may be a knock-off of a very similar pattern. Read on.

I have hung this pattern before, with pleasing results:

https://wallpaperlady.wordpress.com/2016/03/20/water-color-ful-wall-for-a-baby-girl/

and with slightly lesser-than-happy results:

https://wallpaperlady.wordpress.com/2016/08/25/water-color-flowers-for-a-little-girls-room/

Anyway, back to hanging the mural. First I smoothed the new suburban home typically heavyish textured wall, and primed with Gardz. (No photos, but similar to the previous two posts.)

In the 4th photo, I have laid out each strip, to be sure of which way is up, of the sequence to be placed on the wall, and to get exact measurements so I can compare them to the wall.

As for getting the paper onto the wall, I followed the protocol for pre-pasted papers, which is to run each strip through a water tray. I added a light coat of supplemental paste to the wall and at the edges (ceiling, baseboard, corners).

Similar to my last experience with this paper, I had what we call “overlaps and gaps” at the seams. See photos 5 and 6. In the 7th picture, you can clearly see that the paper has not been cut straight. Look closely just below the pink flower petal, and you will see that the seam butts perfectly, then jogs to the left in an overlap, then comes back to the right in a perfect butt.

When the manufacturer provides crooked seams, it’s impossible to make them butt together perfectly.

In addition, every seam had pattern mis-matches. In fact, none of the pattern matched perfectly across the 9′ height of the mural. The photo with the dark green leaf shows an example of this. You might think, “Just pull one strip up a little.” But then other elements of the design at other points along the seam would not match up. (Not pictured.)

The paper is simply poorly trimmed and poorly printed.

From a distance, you don’t notice any of this at all, and even close up, most homeowners don’t see it. But this mother-to-be was envisioning a perfect room for her first baby, and she paid a lot of money for the mural and installation – and she spotted the irregularities immediately.

With some of the overlapped seams, I was able to carefully trim off the lower layer, so they butted together better. And as the paper dried, I was able to push some of the seams together, as well as pull apart some of the overlaps. And I used my trusty No. 2 graphite pencil to fill in some of the mis-matched design at the seams.

In the end, the homeowner was happy with the room.

The crib and other baby’s furniture are white, and will look sweet and peaceful against this accent wall.

Why do I have no photos of the finished room? All this furniture is in the garage, still in boxes, waiting to be assembled.

Hmmm… Guess how this young couple is going to spend the weekend? 🙂