Unfurling Stiff Non-Woven Wallpaper

These new(ish) non-woven / paste the wall wallpapers have a lot of advantages , and most of us installers like working with them. But a lot of brands can be very stiff, and can be difficult to get to lie flat on your table, for both measuring and pasting.

I’ve found that rolling the paper backwards , either by the strip of the entire roll , will help get rid of that ” memory .” Some materials can be damaged / creased when you do this, so it’s important to work gently, and even better to use an unopened roll or other tubular object to start rolling around. Then I use elastic hairbands from the dollar store to hold the paper in place.

It doesn’t take long. Just 15 minutes will usually do it. Here is a roll that has been rolled backwards, now released and relaxed and lying perfectly flat on my work table.

Heavily-Inked Papers Need Extra Moisture

Something smells like moth balls ! Some high-end hand screened wallpapers are printed with what we call stinky inks . These inks often fight with the substrate they’re printed on. The backing of the wallpaper will absorb moisture from the paste and expand , but the ink on the surface won’t, so you end up with what we call waffling or quilting . Wrinkles in the wallpaper in between the printed inked areas. Do a Search here to see photos and read more about this.
You can reduce or eliminate this by evening out the moisture between front and back. It’s as simple as taking a very lightly damp sponge and wiping the front printed surface of the wallpaper. Then paste the back as normal , book (fold pasted side to pasted side), roll up, place in black trash bag for a few minutes.
Now the wallpaper should be relaxed , and the wrinkles should be evened out . Now you’re ready to hang wallpaper !

This pattern is called Les Touches and is by Brunschwig & Fils , a higher-end designer type brand .

Anaglypta Textured Wallpaper – Tough Day at Work Today

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This homeowner wanted to brighten up a drab bathroom (previous paper was a dark tan, with no pattern). She loves texture, and was thrilled to find this herringbone “man’s suit” pattern by Anaglypta.

This is an embossed paper, and the herringbone pattern is quite deep and tactile.

So all that was quite nice for the homeowner. What was not so nice for me was that the material was positively horrible to work with.

It was so thick and stiff that it was honestly impossible to unroll it, let alone lay it out flat so it could be pasted.

Even gentle handling could cause it to crease. Laying my straight edge against it could cause it to crease.

It was impossible to paste, book, and then table-trim, as one would do with a “normal” wallpaper.

I finally started sponging the back with clean water, which relaxed it enough to open it up, so I could paste it.

Once I got a pasted strip to the wall, it was not easy to press the hard stuff against moldings or ceiling, so it was difficult to get tight cuts in those areas.

Cutting around curved crown molding was a challenge – I couldn’t see around it or feel through it, so it was tedious going.

The seams showed a little, depending on what angle you are looking from, because the puffy texture of the herringbone on one strip didn’t necessarily line up with the puffy texture on the next strip.

The last pic is a shot of just this. The photo doesn’t look all that bad . … It looks worse in real life.

It took me probably twice the originally planned time to hang this bathroom. Let’s just say that I was there ’til way after dark.

The end result, though, is that it looks great. The homeowner loves it, and said that she is “beyond pleased.”

Still, I’d like to point out that there are companies that make textured, embossed, paintable wallpapers that are not such bugger-bears to work with. Most of these other brands are softer and more pliable, and will allow themselves to be worked around turns and moldings and etc. My wallpaper source (below) can help you find one.

I hung this in a guest bathroom in a newish home in Montrose (Houston). The wallpaper is by Anaglypta, a company that dates back to the 1800’s. The paper can be left as-is, or it can be painted.

It was bought at below retail price from 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.