An Amazingly Well-Balanced Room

Digital Image

Digital Image

Digital Image

Digital Image

Digital Image

O.K. – this is going to be a pretty technical post, and it will probably thrill me (and other paperhangers) more than it will the typical homeowner, but I was really tickled with the way this turned out. Here goes:

This wallpaper pattern is called “A Twitter,” and is by Schumacher. It is a fun design, and has a strong vertical element, with the trunks of trees very dominant in the design. I hung it in a powder room in the Heights neighborhood of Houston. This room was a rectangle, with the front and rear walls the same width, and the two side walls the same width.

Before I start hanging paper, I plot out the room (engineering), to plan where I want to place the pattern, where seams will fall, etc. I considered running the tree trunk behind the mirror. But that would have made the pattern sit off-center on the wall. Since that wall is facing you as you enter the room, I wanted it to be more symmetrical.

So I decided to center the pattern on the wall. But if I placed the tree trunk in the middle of the wall, then there would be only one tree trunk on that wall, and the next time the tree trunk appeared, it would be on the side walls, and not visible on the main wall. I thought it would look better to have the tree trunk on the main wall. So I planned it so that branches fell down the center line of the wall, and were flanked by a pair of tree trunks on either side. See photo.

What’s cool is, by placing the pattern this way, it turned out that the tree trunk fell almost perfectly centered behind both the mirror and the toilet. See top photo.

Then, as I progressed around the room and papered the side walls, the pattern fell symmetrically on these side walls, and mirrored itself perfectly. Meaning that the two walls that were perpendicular to the main wall, both had the same pattern as it advanced toward the back wall.

The back wall, then, also had the same pattern at the same measurements coming in from the corners as the wallpaper approached the door. See third and fourth photos.

What’s even cooler is that as the paper went around the door, the tree trunk magically “almost” perfectly centered itself over the door. It was so close that it looks like it is centered.

What’s even more cool is how the kill point in this room turned out. The “kill point” is the final corner in a room, where the first strip of wallpaper meets the last strip of wallpaper; this point is virtually always a pattern mis-match. So we try to place it over a door, or behind a door, or somewhere where it won’t be too noticeable.

But in this bathroom, as you can see in the third and fourth photos, the wall area on either side of the final wall was 9″ or more wide, and a mis-match would be very obvious. What I like to do in these cases is to keep the pattern intact by wrapping the paper from the final corner around onto the final wall where it butts up against the door. The door stops the pattern, so you don’t notice that the pattern would not match if you continued it to the opposite corner.

The thing is, there is still the area above the door that needs to be covered with wallpaper, and the design coming along the top of the door was not going to match up with the pattern I had wrapped around the corner to the left of the door. It almost lined up, but was off by about 2″ vertically, as well as about 3/4″ at the top of the wall, because un-plumb walls and un-level ceiling lines had caused the pattern to travel upwards a little.

So what I did was, referring to the last photo, as the paper above the door was moving to the left, and as the pattern on the left of the door was moving to the right and about to meet the pattern over the door, which would have resulted about 2″ of excess paper, and in tree limbs not lining up and birds being cut in half, as well as one bird’s head being at the top of the wall and another same bird’s head being 3/4″ below the top of the wall.

So what I did was, I slit the paper along the right side of the tree trunk. Then I took the right side of the strip of wallpaper that had been cut off and slid it down until the pattern matched up with the strip that was already over the door. Then I slipped the excess 2″ of paper on the left side of this piece under the cut tree trunk to its left. This effectively “swallowed up” the 2″ of excess paper. I trimmed this off so the overlap would be more like 1/2″ and could be disguised by the tree trunk.

So I had lined up the heads of the birds, and I had eliminated the 2′ excess of paper, and everything was hidden by that tree trunk.

One eye-jarring problem remained – The bird at the top of the tree trunk had been disembodied, and his head was at the top of the wall but his body was an inch or two below.

So what I did was to take a piece of left over paper that had the same bird on it and cut around the bird and the branches, and paste that over the tree trunk so the bird you see is completely intact. I needed to cut a few extra piece of brown paper and paste them over the tree trunk so your eye would not catch any incongruency, but you have to admit – that bird and the tree trunk it is sitting on looks pretty darned natural.

There was another area that had a void spot due to where the strips of paper had been moved over or to the side from one another, and I also used this appliqué method to disguise it.

Note that all of this is up 12′ off the ground, so you can’t see overlaps or appliqués or ridges. These techniques might work equally well at eye-level, or they might be more obvious. But in this room, with this pattern and this lay-out and this paper, it sure looks great.

I would challenge any homeowner – and even most any paperhanger – to stand on the floor and find where the pattern / paper was manipulated to disguise the kill point.

All this took a lot of time and math and plotting – but it sure was fun, and it sure was gratifying.

Preparing To Work With Black Wallpaper

Black wallpaper’s gonna go on this wall . Because wallpaper sometimes shrinks a tad as it dries , and because manufacturers can’t always guarantee a perfectly straight cut edge , it’s possible that some of the wall will peek out from behind the seams .

One way to prevent this is to stripe dark paint on the wall under where the seams will fall. This wallpaper is made of non-woven and won’t expand as it gets wet with paste . Each strip is 27″ wide . This makes it easy to measure and plot where each seam will fall.
The center of the pattern is not placed in the middle of the wallpaper strip, but 10″ in from the left edge . I used that information to calculate where the seams would fall .

The paint I use is just craft paint from Michael’s or Texas Art Supply . I thin it with water (in the orange Gatorade cap) and swipe it on the wall with that scrap of sponge . It’s important not to make the paint too thick , because you want the wallpaper to be adhering to the wallpaper primer , and too heavy a coat of craft paint will prevent that primer from doing its job.

After laying out where each seam will fall, I use this laser level to shoot a vertical red line onto the wall, as a guide for where to swipe on the black paint .

Because this wallpaper is printed on a white substrate, it’s possible that that backing will show at the seams. So I use black chalk – again from the art supply store – to run down the edges of the wallpaper .

There’s been an uptick in interest in dark colors in wallpaper these days.

This wallpaper is by Rifle Paper .

Saving Paper, Right and Left

Here I’m hanging wallpaper , moving from left to right. The wallpaper is 21″ wide . The width between my last strip on the right and the wall is 15″.

That means that I will have to cut off 6″ width of paper – which usually ends up on the trash pile. Here I am using a straightedge to cut that off.
Since that strip of wallpaper is 9′ long, we’re losing 4.5 square feet just in this one small area.
(Another reason to always buy a little extra wallpaper … you can’t use every square foot !)
Note that I’ve actually cut my strip to 15.5″, so I’ll have a little excess for trimming at that right wall.

Back to that 6″ (actually 5.5″) wide strip on the trash pile. I never throw anything away until the job is finished. Because I just might be able to use a piece somewhere. As in this case …
After the right side of the wall was finished, I started moving to the left. When I came to the left corner, my last strip needed to be 1.5″ wide.
Instead of cutting a whole new 9′ long strip off the roll of wallpaper, I reached for that scrap pile and pulled out that narrow 5.5″ piece that had been trimmed off the opposite edge of that strip on the other side of the wall.
This was the correct pattern match to meet up with the strip on the left side of the wall in the photo above.

Here I am trimming a 2″ strip (1.5″ + .5″ for trimming allowance) off the appropriate edge of that scrap piece. Note: Be certain you are trimming from the correct side of that scrap! Or the pattern won’t match and you’ll have to cut a fresh 9′ length after all. 😦

Here the wall is finished. For the two corners, only one strip was used, due to being able to cut both a right and a left piece out of only one strip of wallpaper.
Now I’m going to get into a little more technical stuff, that usually only a paper hanger will understand. The pattern above is what we call a straight match . This means every strip is the same. And that a particular design motif (like the pink flower) hits the top of the wall at the same position on every strip. My right-left trick above only worked because this was a straight pattern match.
But … you can make it work with a drop pattern match, too. A drop match means that every other strip is the same. On a drop match, the pink flower will be at the top of the wall on one strip, but drop down a few inches (half the length of the pattern repeat ) on the second strip. By the third strip, it will be back up at the top of the wall.
This also leads to using A and B strips. Confusing – but we wallpaper installers get it.
Anyway, my trick explained above works for straight matches, with all A strips. But if your right corner of the wall ends in an A strip, and the left corner needs a B strip, your scrap from the A strip won’t match the pattern repeat needed on the left side of the wall. So you’re gonna have to cut a whole new 9′ long strip, just to cover that 1.5″ gap at the left corner.
But – WAIT! – there is a trick to outsmart this. If you plan ahead, and count your strips, and plot the layout, and engineer your project, you can avoid needing that 9′ long strip.
When you’re cutting off from the bolt that last A strip for the right corner, just cut it a little longer. Cut it long enough to include the B pattern match. Do a little math and then do some visual checking to be sure you’ve got it right. Then cut your strip.
When you get to trimming off the 15.5″ wide right edge, it will be a few inches longer than the previous strips. So you’ll throw away a tiny bit more when you trim at the bottom of the wall than if it were a straight match.
Correspondingly, the 5.5″ wide scrap left over, from which you will cut the 2″ wide strip needed for the left corner, will be a few inches longer at the top of the wall than needed.
So by juggling the A & B pattern match / repeat , you’ve saved a whole 9′ long strip. This is good, because you always want a bit left over, in case of need for repairs down the road.

This fun pattern is by Missoni Home , which is made by York . It’s a textured embossed vinyl on a non-woven , paste the wall backing and was a very good paper.
Houston

Dwunk Cwitters – Dark Seams

Re my previous post , it’s very common for wallpaper to shrink just a tad when the paste dries, and this can leave you with teeny gaps at the seams. So when hanging a dark paper like this, I like to stripe a band of black paint under where the seams will fall. This way, if the paper does gap at the seams, you will see dark, and not the white wallpaper primer .

I measure and plot where each seam will fall and then run a stripe of diluted water-based craft paint (from Michael’s or Texas Art Supply) under where the seam will be. I wet a scrap of sponge and dip it in the paint, adding water as needed. Don’t make it too thick or dark. Because you want the wallpaper adhering to the wallpaper primer underneath all this.
On top of the wallpaper primer, the craft paint dries pretty quickly. But I use a heat gun to be sure the paint is good and dry before hanging each strip.
Don’t paint more than one or two stripes at a time, because wallpaper stretches and expands when it gets wet with paste , and it’s difficult to predict exactly where each seam will fall. For the same reason, be sure your stripes are at least 1/2″ wide, if not a full inch.
Additionally, I’ll take a pastel chalk (NOT an oil pastel – oil stains wallpaper) and run it from the backside along the white edges of the wallpaper, to prevent any white edges from showing at the seams. Do a Search here to see previous posts about that trick .