The homeowners had this elegant wainscoting added to the bottom of their dining room when the house was built . But for seven years, the room was bland and boring . The new crystal chandelier adds glamor , but the room is still lacking .
Wallpaper to the rescue! Now there’s soft color and soft pattern . And a little gold shimmer !
I’m encouraging the homeowners to paint that band of wall under the tray ceiling a very soft aqua color, to meld with the misty feel of the wallpaper .
It’s a soft aqua color , but enough to stand out against the woodwork . Now you see the beautiful moldings and trim work . South wall beforeSouth wall doneI positioned the tree pattern to fall down the mid-point of this space between the two windows . This shot with the chandelier dimmer turned down allows you to see the pattern more fully.
This wallpaper pattern is called Luminous Branches and is by York , one of my favorite brands , in their Designer Series line. The material has a slight raised / embossed / textured effect. It’s a non-woven product, so is strong , durable , stain-resistant , and designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece and with no damage to the wall when you redecorate later. Non-wovens can be hung by the paste the wall method , but I generally prefer to paste the paper . NW requires no booking / soaking time , so they install a little faster , with no worries about shrinking or gaps at the seams . In fact, the seams are near-invisible . The home is in the Braes Heights area of Houston
Oh, boy – more boring white walls . Now brightened with soft blue color and lightly shining / metallic gold trees . The gold branches and trunks have a raised texture . The manufacturer is York , one of my favorite brands. The pattern is called Luminous Branches , and is similar to their Shimmering Foliage pattern , which is bolder and is in the Candice Olson line . This wallpaper is a non-woven material , and can be installed by the paste the wall method – but I usually prefer to paste the paper , especially in a powder room with pedestal sink and toilet and other objects to trim around and slip paper behind . N-W papers are minimum 20% polyester , and thus are strong and durable and more resistant to stains than traditional paper wallpapers . When the surface is prepped properly and the paper is hung properly, N-Ws are designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece and with minimal damage to the wall when it’s time to redecorate . They’re also easier to install and more DIY-friendly . The home is in the Memorial Villages area of west Houston .
Originally, the powder room was moody and posh , with black lacquered walls , ceiling , and woodwork, black toilet and sink, and that gorgeous etched mirror. But the homeowner waned it to make a statement – and this wallpaper sure does!Corner to left of door.Same corner primed. Wallpaper paste won’t adhere wall to the glossy paint. My preferred primer, Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime , sticks to just about anything, provides a good base for the wallpaper , dries quickly , and facilitates removal of the wallpaper when it’s time to redecorate .Same area with wallpaper. Close-up .Flocked means that the wallpaper has raised , fuzzy areas, something like velvet .Just look at my work table at the end of the day! I sure don’t want to transfer any of this to my next jobs, so I took extra care to remove all of this dust before packing up my equipment. The design is called Croquis and is by Jean Paul Gaultier , and the brand is Lelievre , a French company. The material is a user-friendly non-woven or paste the wall , and was nice to work with. It will strip off the wall easily when it’s time to redecorate. The home is in the Spring Branch area of Houston .
Primed and ready for wallpaper.Vanity wall done. I placed the trees so they would frame the mirror and light fixture evenly.The slope is the underside of the stairs. At first the homeowners said not to paper this sloped area, as it is considered part of the ceiling.After the first wall was papered, we decided that the slope would blend in better if it were covered with paper. I’ve hung this Shimmering Foliage pattern before, but this is the first time in this gorgeous colorway. It really sets off the pretty moldings and white vanity in the room.In this close up, you see the embossed (raised) texture in the vinyl surface. The gold is not metallic, but it sure shines! Made by York, in the Candice Olson line. Just about everything she touches is glittery and elegant. This is a non-woven material, and can be hung using the paste-the-wall method, although I pasted the paper instead, which makes it more pliable and also ensures that paste will get to all areas, including around intricate moldings and behind the toilet. Non-woven papers will strip off the wall easily and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate. Houston wallpaper installer.
Headboard accent wall before. Textured wall was skim-floated and sanded smooth, then primed. Now it’s ready for wallpaper.Finished.Closer look.Detail. The seams were invisible. The lines on this paper are raised a bit, so there is a 3-D effect. I hung this non-woven wallpaper by the paste-the-wall method. Here I have rolled the strips backward, to prevent the decorative surface from hitting the paste on the wall. When I’m at the top of my ladder, I will take off the elastic hairband and let the paper unfurl down to the floor. It’s rolled so the top of the strip comes off first. I have measured the wall and noted where the center point is, then determined where I want my first strip to fall. The black box in the foreground is my laser level, and you can see the vertical red line it’s shooting at the wall, which is where I am going to line up my first strip. Positioning the wallpaper strip along the vertical laser line. This muted geometric pattern is in the Jaclyn Smith Home line by the Trend division of Fabricut. It was mighty nice to work with, and will hold up for years until the family is ready for a change of decor. Then, the polyester-content non-woven material is designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece.
The home is in the Memorial Villages neighborhood of Houston.
Just about everything in this townhome is white. The master bath has white walls and woodwork, white cabinets and countertops, a white tub, and a white marble floor with wisps of soft grey.
This wallpaper continues the crisp clean look, but adds some contrast, dimension, and movement. In addition, the swirls are composed of dots about the size of a pencil eraser, and they are slightly raised, so the wallpaper actually has a bit of texture to it.
The wallpaper is on a non-woven substrate. With the characteristics of this material, you have the option of pasting the wall instead of the paper. But since bathrooms have more complicated spaces and access, it’s preferable to me to paste the paper.
This wallpaper pattern is by Designer Wallpapers, 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.
The home is in the Rice Village / West University Place area of Houston.
This grasscloth wallpaper by Thibaut is called Union Square. It has not just the texture from the natural reeds of grass sewn onto the backing, but also 3-D square “dots” of thick plastic or resin or vinyl … Doesn’t matter what the material is … There are raised, textured “dots” marching across this paper in a neat, orderly fashion.
But plastic can be sticky. On all of the bolts, the paper labels stuck to the plastic dots. Unrolling the grasscloth caused the labels to tear off strips, which remained stuck to the plastic dots. These scraps of paper could not be removed, so I had to cut off and discard the top 16″ or so of each bolt.
The really sad thing about this is that the wall height was such that I could have gotten three strips out of each double roll. But with having to discard paper from the start of each bolt, we were left with only enough remaining paper on the bolt for two strips.
Even worse on a few other bolts, the plastic dots stuck to not just the paper label, but to the paper backing of the grasscloth itself. This left strips of paper stuck to the dots, and also peeled bits of paper off of the back of the wallpaper – leaving the possibility of paste leaking through and staining the surface.
This sticky defect went through the entirety of each bolt, so there were three bolts that were unusable.
This meant that I could not finish wallpapering the remaining walls. And that we’ll have to send back the defective paper, and the homeowner will have to wait for the company to find non-defective paper, and ship it, and for me to have an opening on my schedule to finish the job.
The Thibaut Customer Service rep has told me that the company is aware of and has worked on this problem. (Thibaut is one company that actually LISTENS to us installers, and makes changes as needed.) Their solution is to place thin plastic wrap inside the bolts, to prevent the dots from coming into contact with any other material, like the paper backing.
I hope the replacement paper comes with this new innovation.
The Meyerland neighborhood in Houston has flooded severely three times in five years, with 2017’s Harvey being the worst. Here is what people who want to stay in their neighborhood and their home are doing, to be safe from future floods. These are ’50’s & ’60’s era ranch-style homes.
They will add skirting around the bottom. All new construction, which tend to be larger 2-story homes, must be built up high. It’s major expensive to lift a house, so many of the ’60’s era homes have been patched up, but left on the ground. I’d say that at least 50% of the homes are still unoccupied, a year after the flood. Some have been raised, and some have been razed.
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