So I’m always happy when clients take my advice to consider other options. These homeowners chose a faux grasscloth with an embossed texture (that mimics the tactile appeal of the real stuff), a pattern that can be matched (eliminating jarringly visible seams), on a non-woven substrate (easier install / easier removal when it’s time to redecorate), with a surface that is resistant to stains (as opposed to real grass, which can be stained easily by toiletries, cleaning agents, or even plain water), and, because it’s man-made, greater assurance of homogeneous color – effectively eliminating the woes of paneling and shading and other color variations between and even within strips.
I was pleased with most aspects of this product. For some reason, my camera made the texture look zig-zaggy, but in real life, it really did mimic real grasscloth. The close-up photo gives you a good idea.
One thing that surprised me – and disappointed me – is that, even though this is a man-made material controlled by factory standards, there ended up being a slight color difference between the right and left side of each strip. Look at the fifth photo, particularly the top, and you will see what I’m talking about.
Since this is made in a factory using inks that are mixed at the same time, poured into the printer at the same time, and applied to the wallpaper at the same time, I really don’t understand how the material can have this color variation. Especially since virtually all of the products I have hung by Brewster have been very consistent in color.
In this case, the color variation was fairly minor, was less noticeable when I removed my 100 watt work light, and pretty much reflects what real grasscloth looks like, anyway. The homeowners were fine with it.
The wallpaper is by Exclusive Wallcoverings, which is made by Brewster. It is on a non-woven substrate, and can be hung via the paste-the-wall or paste-the-paper methods. The home is in the Memorial / Beltway 8 / Briarpark area of west Houston. I hung this in a guest bathroom.
I would call the home’s style as contemporary / industrial. This faux grasscloth really softened the room. The horizontal lines in the wallpaper complimented the lines in the shower’s tile. The overall look went from cold and commercial to soft, inviting, and almost spa-like.
I adore this home – a cute, yellow-brick bungalow directly across from Rice University (Houston). It has been updated, yet kept mostly authentic to its 1930’s roots. I papered several rooms in the main house a few months ago, and was back today to paper the bathroom in the garage apartment.
Originally, the homeowner wanted wallpaper from Hannah’s Treasurers, which would be the real-deal old wallpaper from the 1930’s or 1940’s. https://hannahstreasures.com/ But for various reasons, she ended up choosing this more modern, yet timeless, pattern of ginger foliage. One deciding factor was that the colors coordinate perfectly with the green subway tile in the shower.
The wallpaper has a vinyl surface (resistant to water splashes and light stains) on a non-woven backing (much superior to the paper backing used on lower-end pre-pasted vinyls – read more on my page at the right). It was nice to work with, and should hold up well over many years.
The wallpaper is by York, in their designer line by Antonina Vella. It was purchased from Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near the Rice Village.
You might have to enlarge the photo to see the tiny spots on the wallpaper – they are much more visible in real life.
The tiny spots were caused by the homeowner using hairspray. And the water stain in the corner is surely the result of the housekeeper letting cleaning solution pool up on top of the tile.
No airborne anything when you have wallpaper!
If you are going to use hair spray, stand in the tiled shower. Spray the Windex onto your rag, not onto the mirror. No aerosol air freshener.
Even if the product does not hit the wall directly, tiny droplets will hang in the air and can then work their way to the walls, eventually causing staining.
Here is an acanthus-themed wallpaper pattern worked into a stripe, superimposed onto grasscloth. The manufacturer is Schumacher, and I hung it in a powder room and an adjoining shower vestibule in a home in Bellaire. I’ve worked for this family several times over the last 20 years.
Usually, I have problems of sundry description with the Schumacher brand products; this time, there were no major issues.
Most everything in this new home in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston is sleek and white. The homeowner wanted to add just a little pizazz to the hall bathroom shared by her two young daughters.
This Paris-themed design, with its pencil-thin lines and three-color palette is just perfect! I love the way the line drawing effect reiterates the lines in the shower’s subway tile. Charcoal grey, white, and just a touch of red are enough to brighten the room, without overwhelming the serene white color scheme. And it’s a fun design to look at. I mean, who wouldn’t love Paris – especially a Paris with a Ferris wheel?
The wallpaper is by York Wall, in their Sure Strip line, and is a pre-pasted product on a thin non-woven backing. It is designed to strip off the wall easily with no damage when it’s time to redecorate. In the meantime, it is thin and hugs the wall tightly, and the seams are practicably invisible. This brand is very reasonably-priced.
The interior designer for this project is Stacie Cokinos, of Cokinos Design. Stacie specializes in helping choose floor plans, finishes (flooring, countertops, paint colors), fixtures (faucets, lights, knobs), appliances, in new home construction and in remodel projects. Her look is fresh and clean, but very livable for modern families. She is a delight to work with.
The homeowner said I put this paper up about 20 years ago. It is what we call a British pulp paper – paper, not vinyl and not vinyl coated. In a few areas near the ceiling, the paper has started to pull away from the wall. It was only over the shower and tub areas. What does that tell you? Yes, humidity is the great enemy of wallpaper. Especially when you have teenagers taking steamy, hour-long showers.
This was pretty easily fixed, by repasting the wall behind the loose areas, and then smoothing the paper back into place.
Here is a large powder room (with shower!) in a new home in the Houston Heights. One wall inside the shower enclosure was under the stairs, so it had a short sloped area. There was also some vertical wall – but it rose higher than the crown molding that ran around the rest of the room. The dilemma was which surfaces should be covered with wallpaper?
Paper the horizontal wall up to where it meets up with the sloped wall? Paper the sloped wall? Paper both? Paper neither? Choose a coordinating color and paint one or more areas?
In the end, I chose to run a horizontal line between the crown molding on the left and the molding on the right, and then stop the paper at this line. It doesn’t cover the whole wall space, but from down on the floor, your eye doesn’t catch this.
And I think it looks much better to maintain the horizontal line of the paper ending at the bottom of the crown molding, so it is homogeneous all the way around the room.
This wallpaper is by David Hicks, for Cole & Son, and is called Hick’s hexagon.
I removed a strip of paper-backed solid vinyl wallpaper from the wall over a shower in a room used by two teenagers. The type of paper (one of my least favorites), the humidity from the hot and heavy shower usage, the lack of primer used by the previous installer, and an exterior wall that most likely had some moisture problems, all added up to a recipe for mildew.
I used bleach and then another mold / mildew product to kill and remove the mildew, then went over it with an oil-based stain-blocking sealer called KILZ.
Over the KILZ, I added a coat of wallpaper primer. The two primers that I use most are the large cans in the last photo, and they each are used for different circumstances.
So today I was hanging paper on the wall above the shower. I looked down to see a wasp clinging to the white tile directly below me. No biggie, I thought… When I get down off the ladder I’ll see if the homeowner has a flyswatter.
I was still maneuvering the wallpaper when I noticed that the wasp had flown away, and landed on an opposite wall. Fine. No problem. He will eventually find his way outside.
I was just about to finish up with that strip of wallpaper, when I felt something on my leg. I figured it was a thin piece of wallpaper that had been trimmed off and fallen from where I was working, somehow landed on my leg and stuck. But it kept moving.
I looked down – and danged if that dad-burned wasp wasn’t on my leg, squirming all around!
This was too much! I didn’t want to mess up any of my tools or cloths, and I didn’t want to agitate the volatile guy – but I had to do something. So I swatted at him and got him off my leg, and while he was disoriented, I used my ruler to, well, let’s just say you could hear the crunching of a tiny exoskeleton …
His stinger came out, but by that time he was on the cold hard tile floor of the shower, impotent. My leg was miles away.
