Here you’re looking at a laundry room, under the counter, and behind the sink. I’ve got to put wallpaper back there. Even though nobody’s going to look under here or scrutinize, I want it to look perfect. Good thing that I’m small, because I can fit under here and maneuver fairly well. Still, working around these pipes is really taxing. You have to make a lot of relief cuts , and other measures, to get the wallpaper to fit around the pipes and then lie against the wall. Additionally, usually the drywall guys were not able to get the wall perfectly smooth in these areas. Escutcheons (decorative plates) will hide a lot of wall bumps, imperfect cuts, gaps, overlaps, and other normal occurrences in situations like this. Only thing is, the plumber “forgot” to put escutcheons around the water lead lines and the drain pipe under this sink. I think that I was able to trim neatly enough that no escutcheons are needed. 😊 This wallpaper pattern is called Frutto Proibito and is by Cole & Son . It’s a non-woven / paste the wall material , easy to strip off the wall when you redecorate , and easy to hang (except for cramped areas under sinks ! )
Vanity wall was originally textured and painted with a semi-gloss . Here it’s been skim-floated , sanded , and primed – ready for wallpaper. Finished. There’s a cool light-up mirror that will hang on the brackets under the light fixture .Opposite corner before.Finished. This room wouldn’t have half the impact without the black moldings and ceiling. The homeowner said she envisioned a jewel box – all tufted and lined with velvet . Well, I’d say she nailed the look! As the dark and mysterious wallpaper moved from left to right, the room began to take on a mood . I love the juxtaposition between a clad wall and a bare wall. Close-up.Detail.The husband is handy, and I really appreciate that he removed the vanity and sink . This made it a lot faster and easier for me, and ensured better adhesion of the wallpaper around the plumbing pipes . And also eliminated stress and creases on the paper that can happen when bending and folding to work it around obstacles. Here is the modern looking vanity that will go into the powder room . To keep white primer from showing at the seams , I striped black paint on the wall under where each seam would fall. Do a Search here to read previous posts about this technique.I use matt finish craft paint from the hobby store , a scrap of sponge , and a bottle cap full of water . Do a Search here to read previous posts about the process and materials . I also run chalk along the edges of the wallpaper, to cover up the white substrate , to ensure there will be no white peeking out at the seams . Again, do a Search on key words to learn more about this technique . Dang it! I forgot to take a picture of the label! But this wallpaper is by York and is called On The Prowl . It’s vinyl on a non-woven backing . The instructions said you could paste the wall for installation . But I pasted the paper, and I think with this product it’s better, because it did seem to want to expand a bit. If you paste the wall and then the paper stretches, you’ll end up with buckles at the seams or bubbles within the strips . The material was fairly flexible , which was nice because it allowed me to “mush” the paper to conform to some pretty un-plumb walls. Although York is one of my favorite brands , I wasn’t real crazy about this particular wallpaper. Still, it seamed up nicely, didn’t shrink, has a vinyl surface that will resist splashes and fingerprints , and is designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate . This is a townhome in the Rice Military area of central Houston .
The husband removed the powder room’s vanity , and also the tank on the back of the toilet. This made it immensely easier for me to hang the wallpaper. The toughest part of today was trimming around those three pipes, which really wasn’t too hard at all. Having a blank wall also means that the wallpaper can run all the way down to the floor, rather than having to be cut along the top of the vanity. This is really nice, because it eliminates the worry of water that splashes onto the wall or backsplash getting wicked up into the wallpaper – which can cause the seams to pull away from the wall.
An all-black powder room (walls, ceiling, floor) seemed like a moody, innovative idea. But it ended up being stark and uninteresting, not to mention claustrophobic. A little wallpaper, still in a dark color, maintains the original idea, but lightens the mood (and brightens the room) a whole lot. We decided to paper the sloped area under the stairs, but not the actual ceiling itself. This pattern and color on the ceiling would have been overwhelming. Another shot of the wall and sloped area, opposite corner.There’s nothing like spending an hour under the console sink! Besides all these pipes to cut around, note that the countertop is one mere inch away from the wall to the left. Peacock by Rifle Paper is extremely popular, and I’ve hung it a number of times. Search here to see previous posts. Interestingly enough, other brands have made their own versions, but homeowners still gravitate to this design. The material is made by York , one of my favorite brands. It’s a non-woven paste-the-wall product. It’s much more durable and stain-resistant than paper wallpapers, and is designed to strip off the wall easily and with no damage to the wall when you’re ready to redecorate. wallpaper installation houston
You are looking a the plastic escutcheon / decorative cover to hide plumbing pipes under this pedestal sink. Someone painted it the same color as the wall, and with the same wall paint. Only problem is, most paints won’t stick to plastic. Plastic is too slick. That’s why now the paint is peeling off with just the slightest tug or tension. It’s peeling away like a snake shedding his skin. There are some solutions for this. For starters, the plastic could have been sanded, to give the paint some “tooth” and something to grab ahold of. There are also primers that will adhere to plastic and prepare it to take the paint. Even simpler, there are paints formulated to stick to plastic. Krylon makes some, and I’ve used it on my outdoor lawn chairs; it’s held up nicely for about 20 years.
The powder room in this 1990’s home in the Houston Heights is being updated, and that means replacing the wall-to-wall vanity. Here the vanity has been ripped out. The areas where the backsplash was adhered to the wall have pulled the top surface of the drywall off. In addition, the plumber had to cut out a section of drywall in order to gain access to the pipes, so he can install the new faucet and handles. You can see the connections roughed in. You can’t hang wallpaper over this mess. First of all, it way too uneven – all those bumps will show under the new wallpaper. And the outline of the ” trapdoor ” will leave a big square ridge under the paper. Thankfully, the plumber secured the panel with drywall screws – most plumbers just leave you with a chunk of drywall floating in space, or even just an empty hole. Back to patching issues … in addition, the torn areas of drywall will absorb moisture from the wallpaper primer and / or paste and expand, creating bubbles that will show under the new paper. I needed to fill in dips and gouges, even out high areas, and prevent bubbling drywall. Gardz by Zinsser to the rescue! This is a penetrating sealer that soaks into porous surfaces and then dries hard, binding them together and creating a stable surface, as well as resisting moisture from water-based top coatings. This picture doesn’t look much different, but here the torn drywall is a little darker, indicating that the Gardz has soaked in and dried. The surface is now ready for a skim-coat. But first, the trap door needs to be addressed. I covered the cut areas with four strips of self-adhesive mesh drywall tape (no photo). Then I went over everything (wall to wall) with joint compound (commonly referred to as mud ) (no photo). Because of the thickness of the high and low areas, this had to be a thick coat of smoothing compound, and would take a long time to dry. So I went to the jobsite two days ahead of our install date, to do these initial repairs. And – no – you can’t use quick set or hot mud or 5 or 20 minute mud to do these repairs. These products are intended for repairs of small areas. Top coatings like primers, paint, and wallpaper paste do not stick well to them. Don’t let a contractor sweet-talk you into letting him use any of these to smooth a large area of wall.Here is the wall after my first, heavy, coat of smoothing compound. I use Sheetrock brand’s Plus 3.The bubbles you see just left of center show that Gardz didn’t 100% do its job of sealing out moisture, as a little expansion and blistering has occurred. Not a biggie. These will disappear when the surface is sanded. There is usually not a problem with these re-appearing.When I got to work two days later, the smoothing compound had dried. I sanded pretty smooth. Then vacuumed up the dust on the floor, and then used a damp sponge to wipe residual dust off the wall. This is important, because no coating will stick to dust. The wall still wasn’t perfectly smooth, so I did another skim-coat. This was much thinner, so didn’t need a lot of time to dry. I used a fan and my heat gun to speed things along. Once that was dry, I sanded it smooth, vacuumed and then wiped off all dust. Then rolled on my favorite wallpaper primer Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime. I have the paint store (Murphy Brothers in central Houston) add a little blue tint, so I can see it when I apply it to the wall. What a transformation! Now this wall is ready for wallpaper!
This couple in the West University neighborhood of Houston loves color and avant garde – unexpected and fun! I hung this Honshu wallpaper by Thibaut in their small hallway at the beginning of the pandemic – April 2020. Since then, they decided to change the faucets and showerhead in the bathroom on the other side of this wall. To access the pipes, the plumber had to cut a hole in the drywall. The ‘guy’ that this couple uses did a fantastic job of cutting the drywall, preserving the wallpaper, and then patching the hole. You can even see that his cuts are perfectly level and plumb! Slapping wallpaper patches over the two holes would have probably sufficed. But I wanted to make it better, so I stripped off and replaced the old wallpaper. This meant patching the guy’s drywall repairs. I didn’t get a photo, but I used drywall tape and joint compound to even out the areas. A heavy duty floor fan plus a heat gun helped get the smoothing compound to dry in a few hours. I sanded smooth and applied wallpaper primer, and ended up with what you see in the photo.To conserve paper, instead of replacing the entire two strips from ceiling to floor, which could have caused some problems with matching the pattern on the left side, I patched in about one foot down from the ceiling line. To disguise the appliqued area, I used a scissors and trimmed around the wallpaper design, as you see here. This is less visible than a straight horizontal cut. In this photo, the two strips have been put into place. You could never tell there was a hole (or two) !
The record-setting freeze that hit Texas in mid-February 2021 caused a lot of damage over multiple fronts.
In homes, a lot of this was due to water pipes that froze and burst, flooding floors or raining water down from walls and ceilings.
For a couple of weeks now, I’ve been getting calls for repairs to wallpaper.
Some homes “just” have water stains. But many homes have had to have drywall cut out, flooring pulled up, studs and outer wall brick exposed. Today I looked at a home where the entire first floor had been affected – all the kitchen cabinets, appliances, and backsplashes had been yanked out and trashed, all flooring gone, drywall cut out up to 18″ – nothing but studs and a raw concrete floor.
Even though the damage was on the lower 1/3 – 2/3 of the walls, to make the room look right, ALL the wallpaper has to be stripped off and replaced.
The kicker is, I had just hung their wallpaper back in October.
Repairs are hard to do, and hard to make look “as good as new.”
Even harder is that insurance companies always have a vastly different idea of what it costs for materials and labor, compared to actual real life prices, to get these people’s homes back to being livable again.
The top photo shows where a cut-out was made in the wall, to allow the plumbers to have access to the bathtub pipes inside the wall. The chunk of drywall they cut out has been replaced, and you can see around that the original wallpaper, which is a green grasscloth. Around that, the grasscloth has been painted tan.
The second photo shows another wall with a hinged door that allows access to some attic space behind. Let’s hope that whatever electrician or A/C guy who needs to crawl through there will be thin and trim!
The homeowners had to live with this access door in the middle of their new baby’s nursery wall. The wall was to be wallpapered, and they wanted the door to disappear as much as possible. When I got there, there was about a quarter-inch gap all around the trap door. Instead of trimming the wallpaper to the wall and to the door, which would have left a dark 1/4″ gap showing all around, I trimmed close to the trap door, and left just that little 1/4″ bit of wallpaper “flapping loose.”
You can still see the door, but it’s fairly well camouflaged, and looks much better than before.
Some people get upset when there is a fair amount of wallpaper left over after the room is finished. This Clear Lake (Houston) couple felt the same, 15 years ago when I papered their kitchen and powder room. Well, come 2016, and the 40-year-old pipes in their ’70’s era home began to fail. Bottom line – they had to have the whole house completely re-piped. And to do that, the plumbers had to cut holes here and there in the drywall. When the drywall gets messed up, so does the wallpaper. Good thing they had extra wallpaper on hand!
The plumbers did a good job of patching the Sheetrock and then floating over the joints where the new patched-in drywall met the old. But there were still some areas that I needed to refloat and / or sand smooth, and then prime, before the wallpaper could be replaced.
The 2nd and 3rd photos show the soffit or fur down over the kitchen cabinets, first with the plumbers’ patch, and then with my new wallpaper repair.
The powder room had a swirly pattern, and had four walls that needed wallpaper repairs. In this room, as shown in the 5th photo, I appliquéd the new paper over the existing paper. Cutting along the design helps disguise the patch by eliminating visual breaks.
There is even a little paper still left over, in case another calamity strikes and more wallpaper repairs are needed. 🙂
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