Disguising the Kill Point

I hung this beautiful tan peacock pattern on a pearlized background in a powder room in the Clear Lake / Seabrook area of Houston. The “kill point” is the last corner in a room, and you will virtually always have a pattern mis-match at that point, so I plan the layout so that falls in an inconspicuous place. Usually, that’s a door that is set close to a corner.

But in this powder room, all four corners were very visible. I didn’t want to end in one of those corners, because that would result in a half a peacock butting up against a cut-off tree branch, for the entire 8′ height of the wall.

So I put the kill point over the door, where the strip was only 10″ high. A 10″ mis-match is better than an 8′ mis-match, but I still didn’t want to end up with a chopped up peacock. So I fiddled around a little, played with the pattern, overlapped two pieces (with wax paper protecting them from paste), and spliced the two pieces together, using a curved cut instead of a straight cut, so I could cut around the tree branches and leaves, instead of cutting them off abruptly.

You can see that the pattern motif repeats itself, but that is not too noticeable, in the grand scheme of things, and looks way better than the alternative.

Interestingly, I did a similar trick earlier in the week with another kind of paper, and the technique was entirely different. The other paper was thin and could be overlapped and have appliqués applied to it. This paper, a thick non-woven with a textured surface, could not be overlapped, so a splice was the best route.

This wallpaper is by Ronald Redding for York Wallcoverings, and was sold by Ethan Allen’s Friendswood (Baybrook) location. Betcha didn’t know they had (free!) design services, did you?

Woodsy Accent Wall in a Clear Lake Living Room

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Trees are a popular decorating theme – I’ve hung this or similar patterns quite a few times. The homeowner was originally somewhat surprised to see that the paper had a tan color to it, because that had not shown up on the on-line images. (Note: Always best to go to a brick-and-mortar store to see and feel actual samples. You can also order samples before you buy.)

But once the paper went up, it was evident that the tan color works very nicely with the deeper tan walls in the rest of the living room and dining room. In fact, I like this better than if they had gotten paper that was grey tones only. The tan color helps pull the whole room together. They have black accents, too, like the dining table and the doors in the home, and the bits of black really punch it up!

This is an accent wall in a living room, and a comfy sofa will be placed in front of the trees.

I’ve hung this same pattern before, in paper, but this time it was printed on the newish non-woven substrate. One advantage of the non-wovens is that they will strip off the wall (hopefully) more easily than paper wallpapers. Also, they don’t expand when wet paste hits them, like papers do, so that helps you get accurate measurements, as well as offers the option of pasting the wall instead of pasting the back of the paper.

This foresty design is by Ronald Redding, and is from York Wallcoverings.

A Classic Trellis Pattern is Classy in a Powder Room

The marble countertop, intricate moldings on the vanity, and the homeowner’s choice of mirror and light fixture all combine with this centuries-old pattern for an elegant, yet modern look.

This is in the powder room of a young couple in a new home the Heights.

This wallpaper design is by Ronald Redding, by York Wallcoverings, and was bought at a discounted price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.

More Pics of the Glass Bead Wallpaper with Bull Nosed Arch

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I tried really hard to get pics of the light glinting off the glass beads, but the photos don’t show it. 😦 What you can see, though, is the arched doorway with rounded / bull-nosed edges. It’s pretty tricky to trim wallpaper on these edges, because you have no definite edge for your trim blade to fit into, and because the wallpaper hangs over the edge and you can’t see what you are doing or where you are cutting. Cutting through those hard balls of glass made it all the more trying.

I have a special home-made tool that helps with that, as well as a laser line, straight edges, aviator’s shears, and a quiet, empty house to work in so I could concentrate and move my assortment of gear wherever I needed to.

It turned out looking great, and I was particularly pleased that the thick, stiff material molded to the rounded corners and held tightly without curling up. This is a young and active family, though, so they will need to take care not to brush against the cut edge of the wallpaper as they pass through the doorway. I can tell that this high-traffic area does take some abuse, because there are smudges and marks in certain places on the walls. If the paper should start to come loose, there are a few tricks I can pull out of my hat to fix it. 🙂

This medallion pattern is by Ronald Redding for York Wallcoverings, and was bought at a discounted price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.

Shimmery, Sparkly Glass Bead Wallpaper

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These days, for lots of people, it’s all about glitz and bling. Well, how about a little bling for your walls?! Wallpaper decorated with glass beads, which catch and reflect the light, are all the rage right now.

Yes, real glass beads, a little larger than grains of sand, are embedded onto the wallpaper substrate in this example, in a medallion motif. Many companies make shiny, glittery wallpapers, using various techniques. But this product, by Ronald Redding, of York Wallcoverings, is the real deal.

I have to admit, this wallpaper is more difficult to work with than I had expected, and it is taking an extra day to finish this relatively small, but cut-up and complicated eating area in a new home in Oak Forest, Houston.

The material is thick and stiff and unmalleable, and it’s hard to get it to fit snugly into corners, such as at the ceiling and moldings, and particularly the rounded curves around the fireplace mantel.  And cutting through those pretty glass beads with a trimming blade is the Devil!

Those beads just love to come lose and fall all over the floor, mess with the surface of my work table, contaminate my paste, and, yes, stray onto the back of the wallpaper, creating a very visible bump under the shiny paper.  Removing them is very tenuous, first because they are miniscule and difficult to track down, but also because peeling the paper away from the wall is prone to cause creases or mar the surface.

Also, because it’s a thick and stiff non-woven material, the seams are always going to show more than with a regular wallpaper (last photo).

The going may be low, but room is “waking up” more and more as each wall takes on a cloak of the shimmery wallpaper. With windows on three walls, there will always be light coming at just the right angle to illuminate those pretty glass beads!

Trellis Pattern End Point Over A Door

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When hanging wallpaper in a room with four corners, that last corner virtually always ends in a mis-match. That’s because the width of the paper is not perfectly proportional to the width of the walls. With a wild pattern, you might not notice. But with a design like this trellis, your eye might be jarred by this mis-match.

So we try to hide this last corner, behind a door, hopefully, if it sits close to a the adjoining wall. But this powder room didn’t have any “hidden” corners, so the mis-match was going to be pretty noticeable. But I found a good place to hide it.

This room sits under the stairs, and has a sloping ceiling. Over the door, the wall was 20″ high, but where the ceiling sloped down near one corner of the door, it came to more like 10.” You’ll notice 10″ worth of mis-match much less than 20,” so I decided to put it right there. Normally, I wouldn’t put the kill point, as it’s called, in an open wall space right over a door, but in this room, and with this pattern, it was the best option.

I plotted which lines from the strip of wallpaper over the door would look best placed against the lines on the strip to the right of the door. I carefully cut along the design, making sure that the white lines met up with each other without any abrupt stops or angles.

Once finished, if you were just casually looking around the room, you would never notice that the pattern doesn’t match perfectly over that corner.

This trellis pattern is by Ronald Redding, for York Wallcoverings, and was bought at a discounted price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.

Chocolate Brown Trellis in a Powder Room

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This trellis pattern is very popular, and has been knocked-off by many different wallpaper manufacturers. I hung this in an under-the-stairs powder room in West University Place, in Houston, for a family expecting their first child very soon.

This version is by Ronald Redding, by York Wallcoverings. The white is a thickish raised ink, looking and feeling a little like gesso. The dark brown background is a thick and stiff non-woven material, which is a little tricky to work with. It’s main benefit is that when it’s time to redecorate, it is supposed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece.

This material is also a paste-the-wall product, although the manufacturer says you can paste the paper too, if you prefer. There are pros and cons to each method, and today I chose to paste the wall. The wallpaper and was bought at a discounted price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.

“Almost” the Imperial Trellis Design

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This is a handsome (and more affordable) knock-off, of a classic wallpaper pattern called the Imperial Trellis, that has been around for, well, for maybe more than 100 years. I have hung it in a number of colors, but this is the first time to do it in such a dramatic and bold dark grey color. Unfortunately, my danged camera ate most of my photos, including shots of some tricky and impressive measures I had to take to keep the pattern matched while dealing with some very un-plumb walls.

Here is the one shot I have. It tells a lot. This perfectly centered first strip of wallpaper took me about 40 minutes to hang. I had to find the center point on the wall based on the faucet (a pic of the sink and faucet disappeared – thanks, cheapie camera!) and the light fixture (you can see a photo of that), and then calculate how that translated to the placement of the pattern on the bolt of wallpaper, and then where I should line up the edge of the first strip of paper, so that the center of the design aligned with the faucet and light fixture.

That’s the Cliff Notes version – a whole lot more math and engineering and planning went into that first strip. 🙂

I hung this in the powder room in a new home of a young family in the Woodland Heights section of the Heights neighborhood of Houston.

This wallpaper pattern is by Ronald Redding, for York Wallcoverings, and was bought at a discounted price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.

Time for an Update

The top of this dining room in Barker’s Landing (Memorial & Hwy 6) was papered 15 or 20 years ago in a soft pink “satin look” paper-backed pre-pasted solid vinyl wallpaper, and the bottom was painted a soft pink. Well, that was well and good back in the ’80’s, but the room needed an update. Besides, I really try to steer people away from those paper-backed solid vinyl papers, because, especially in humid rooms like bathrooms, they tend to curl at the seams.

As you can see, the new pattern is similar, but much more up to date and livable, in tan and cream, with a thin navy and a thinner red stripe. The bottom of the wall will be painted a deep blue, to coordinate with the blue stripe, and to complement the homeowner’s collection of Flow Blue Oriental dinnerware.

This is a paper, not a vinyl, so it will lie nice and flat against the wall for years to come. Even the last corner worked out nicely (last photo), as you can hardly see that the striped pattern is off, but only by a tad. (The dark stripe is a little wider in the corner than it is on the straight walls.)

This pattern is by Ronald Redding, by York Wallcoverings, and was bought at a discounted price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her. Dorota also coordinated the paint color with the wallpaper. The homeowner said, “Dorota is everything you said she was! She made it so easy to find a paper we loved, and she helped us with paint color selections, too.”

I LOVE It When the Pedestal Sink is GONE!

Wow, was I happy to come to work today, and discover that the homeowner had removed the pedestal sink. These free-standing sinks are real buggers to hang paper around, and under, and around all those pipes.

Not having it there meant saved me about 40 minutes of time, gave the homeowners a neater look around the pipes (a decorative escutcheon will go around the pipes and drain to dress it up a little more), and it meant that there is no cut edge at the top of the sink, which eliminates the worry of splashed water causing the wallpaper to curl.

This textured peacock pattern is by Ronald Redding by York Wallcoverings, and was sold by Ethan Allen’s Friendswood (Bay Brook) location. It went in a powder room in the Clear Lake / Seabrook area.