The accent wall in a Houston Heights master bedroom where I’m working is a little dark. Here I’ve removed the light sconces , and am getting ready to skim-float to smooth the textured wall . A little more light would be helpful! My bright 100 watt light bulb is screwed into a little gizmo that’s quite handy . It’s a socket for a light bulb that can be plugged into an electrical wall outlet . Alternately, as you can see, because there are two holes in the bottom of the metal prongs , you can slip the ends of the electrical wires into those holes . Of course, you have to be careful that the ends of those two wires ( one white and one black ) don’t touch each other . That could cause a spark and a shock , and maybe even trip the circuit breaker . Oh, and, also, be sure to turn the power off at the switch before doing this. If you want to be extra-cautious, you can kill the circuit at the breaker box – but really, turning off at the wall switch and then taking care not to let the two wires touch each other, will be pretty safe. When ready to work around this improvised lighting , especially with metal tools or wet wallpaper , I will turn off the power at the switch , remove the socket thingie from the wires in the wall , use screw cap wire nuts to cover the exposed wire ends , and tuck the wires a bit into the electrical box . Once the paper’s up in that area, I can reattach the socket and get me some light again. I stumbled upon these things at a garage sale decades ago, and got maybe 10 of them for a buck or two. But they’re still available in electrical departments of places like Home Depot and Lowe’s and our neighborhood favorite here in central Houston – Southland Hardware . They cost about a dollar or a dollar and a half each .
I’m getting ready to skim-float this accent wall in a master bedroom , to smooth the textured wall . The texture on the wall looks a little odd to me. Also, it is more concentrated in the center of the wall , and less so as you get close to corners and window moldings . This is leading me to think that this texture didn’t come with the house . When homes are built and texture is wanted, the painters or drywall guys come in with spray equipment and shoot the joint compound onto the wall. This gives a pretty uniform coverage , and also coats every surface, up into corners and molding. Not sure, but I think this one I’m working with might be the after-market kind that you can buy in a spray can from Home Depot . It does seem pretty uniform, too. You can do a search here to read more about the skim-floating / skim-coating process , and smoothing textured walls , to provide a smooth and attractive surface for the new wallpaper .
Wallpaper is to go on the top 2/3 of the walls in this large dining room. But the walls are textured, and that texture will show through the new paper. Which looks pretty bad , IMO , especially since most the design is plain white background. So here I am applying a skim-coat by skim-coating / skim-floating the wall to smooth over the texture.Close up. A lot of people use a wide broad knife or drywall taping tool . But I prefer the control I have using this trowel . There will be ridges and valleys and imperfections . But tomorrow, when the smoothing compound is dry , I will sand everything smooth . I have to say, I’m pretty darned good at smoothing walls . 🙂I like to use the Plus 3 Joint Compound by the Sheetrock brand. It’s much easier to sand than the standard joint compound . Do NOT use the ” quick set ” version – coatings such as primer , paint , or wallpaper don’t like to adhere to this stuff . It’s made for small patches , not covering entire walls. BTW, for short, we simply call this ” mud .”Once the walls have been sanded smooth , all the dust vacuumed up, and residual dust wiped off the walls with a damp sponge , then I will apply my favorite primer, Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime , made specifically for use under wallpaper .
Powder room before. Note the blue ceiling . I applied a white pigmented wallpaper primer ( Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime ) to the walls . Done! So cheery and fun and lively! These flowers just make you smile when you walk in here!Toilet corner before. I’m grateful to the husband for removing the toilet tank, as well as the sink / vanity. This sure saved me a lot of time and squeezing into tight spots. The red square in the back is wall area that was blocked by the toilet tank, so previous painters were not able to reach that area. It had a heavy sand texture on it, which I took a little extra time to skim-float and then sand smooth. Nobody’s going to see it, but it will help the wallpaper adhere better . Toilet corner after. The corner you’re looking at was off-plumb by about 1/2″ from top to bottom, so there is a bit of a pattern mis-match as you get closer to the floor. Not a biggie with this wild pattern, plus it’s mostly hidden behind the toilet.Hard to see, but the focus of the photo is an angled wall under the stairs . The blue ceiling coordinates perfectly with the colors in the wallpaper . This is by Rifle Paper , and is called Garden Party . Every Rifle Paper I’ve hung previously has been on a non-woven substrate , and could be installed by the paste-the-wall method. The label said this was a PTW (see diagram of brush putting paste on the wall) … but it surprised me, because it was NOT! It was on a regular paper stock, and I’m betting it’s the same material that York prints its SureStrip line as well as the Spoonflower brand. I assumed the directions and diagram were correct, so first I pasted the paper and then took it immediately to the wall, with no booking time. Lo and behold, I got bubbles on the wall. This happens because the paper is absorbing moisture from the paste and expanding. With no way to escape being trapped between the paper and the wall, the moisture ” off gas es” and pushes away from the wall ,,, resulting in those bubbles. My solution was to treat the material as a traditional pasted wallpaper. So I pasted the back, folded pasted-side-to-pasted-side (called booking ), and then placed it into a black plastic trash bag for a few minutes. This allows the paper to absorb moisture from the paste, expand, and relax , all before it goes onto the wall. This is a pretty sure way to prevent the appearance of bubbles or blisters or wrinkles. The townhome is in the Highland Village / Galleria area of Houston .
Finished living room accent wall. This was a looong wall – 24′ wide. It took 14 strips of wallpaper!Before. I’m getting ready to skim-float the textured wall to smooth it, then apply a wallpaper primer .Ready to hang, with my “A” and “B” strips lined up in the order they will be hung. This is a paste-the-wall product, and I like to roll them backwards so the surface doesn’t bop into the paste as I position the strips on the wall. I secure with elastic head bands from the dollar store. First strip starts in the center of the wall, both to balance the pattern. But also because the ceiling line is way not level and the pattern will go off-track at the ceiling, this will minimize the tracking by spreading it outward 12′ each way from the center. If I start at one corner, the tracking would be a lot more noticeable by the time it crossed the whole 24′ of wall. Close up.This is simply called Palm Leaves and is by Cole & Son , a good brand. It’s a non-woven material and is designed to strip off the wall easily and with minimal damage when you redecorate. It’s also a little more durable and stain-resistant than paper wallpapers. It was very nice to work with. The home is in the Westbury area of Houston. The couple has mid-century modern furnishings, and this wall looks fantastic as a backdrop !
A theory has been circulating for decades that a liner will disguise texture or imperfections in a wall. A liner is a special paper applied to the walls before the actual decorative wallpaper goes up. It has its purpose – but smoothing walls is not one of them. At least, not in my opinion.
Here you see an area where a pedestal sink has been removed. In so doing, part of the drywall was torn away (the reddish brown area) and the wall surface is left uneven. I’m using liner in this room for another reason. Here it has been applied over the damaged area. As you can see, the uneven texture of the wall shows right through (we say that it telegraphs ). Once the liner is good and dry, it will shrink and pull even tighter to the wall, and the ridges underneath will be even more visible. And once the wallpaper goes up, all this will telegraph through the new wallpaper, as well. Here’s the liner paper I used today. It’s a fairly thick, stiff, non-woven material, so has more ” bridging ” power than other types of liner paper. Still, as you see above, it’s not enough to smooth textured or uneven wall surfaces. The only way to properly and thoroughly smooth a textured wall, IMO , is to skim-float it and then sand it smooth, and then apply a wallpaper primer. Please do a Search here (upper right corner) to find previous posts on this process.
You’re looking at a water supply line underneath a pedestal sink in a powder room. This hole is a little wide, and offers the wallpaper nothing to adhere to. In addition, there is no escutcheon (decorative plate) to hide the hole. I took some special paper and cut a ” collar ” to fit around the pipe and also cover the hole. I dipped the “collar” into Gardz . This is cool stuff. It soaks in to porous surfaces, adheres to surfaces, and dries hard. Here is the patch in place. Once it’s dry, I’ll skim-float with joint compound (” mud “) and then sand smooth. The finished product will be a smooth, intact surface for the wallpaper to adhere to, with only a tiny gap around the plumbing.
Tomorrow this breakfast area wall will get wallpaper. Today is prep day.The wall has a very heavy texture, plus some issues with previous patches in areas, probably due to drywall cracks. I need to skim-float over all this to smooth the surface. In addition, the current paint is quite glossy – and this can present a problem for the smoothing compound to adhere to it properly. So I want to prime over this gloss paint before I skim-coat the walls. The primer has to both stick to the gloss paint and provide a base that the smoothing compound will adhere to. Another issue is that I won’t be using this every day, so keeping it shaken up and useable was a consideration. I looked high and low for an appropriate primer. Finally I snapped that the Roman Ultra Prime Pro 977 that I use under my wallpaper jobs checks off all the boxes … It sticks to just about anything, and it dries nice and flat / matt so any topcoat (wallpaper or smoothing compound) can grab ahold and stick, I have it in my van all the time, and I use it frequently enough that it’s always mixed up and ready to use. To top it all off, it dries in less than an hour. Voilà! This stuff can be tricky to find. Sherwin-Williams used to stock it for me, but became unreliable. Now Murphy Brothers on Bissonnet (Houston) gets it just for me. Besides dropcloths on the floor, here I’ve tacked strips of thin paper dropcloth material along the wainscoting (I also do this along baseboards) to keep any drops or roller splatters from marring the homeowners’ floor and moldings.Here it is applied. Since my goal is to cover and eliminate the glossy paint, and then provide a base for the smoothing compound, this coat doesn’t need to be opaque or cover the wall evenly. Tomorrow we’ll see how the wallpaper turns out!Fast-forward … I’ve floated the wall and sanded it smooth. Compare the smoothness to the “before” picture at the top.
A quarter inch of new pink paint from the sidewalls underlapping onto the wall where I will be hanging a mural will ensure that none of the original tan wall paint will peek out of the corner. All it takes is 1/4″ , which is what I asked the painters to provide. As you can see, someone has a little problem with his measurements and math. This swath is more like 2″-4″. Not a biggie. It’s a matt finish paint, and won’t be difficult for either my smoothing compound or wallpaper paste to adhere to. My first task in this room is to skim-float the wall to smooth over the orange peel texture. That task took a lot longer than hanging the wallpaper!
This is a typical wall texture provided by many builders of new tract homes in the suburbs of Houston. Wallpaper doesn’t look good hung over this texture, because the bumps will show through. And the high-and-low ridges and dips interfere with good adhesion to the wall. So this accent wall will need to be skim-floated to smooth it before the wallpaper can go up. In addition, this wall started out with a semi-gloss paint. I worry about my materials being able to stick to a glossy surface. So, before applying the smoothing compound, I am priming the wall with something that will stick to the gloss paint, as well as provide a matt finish for the smoothing compound to adhere to. I’ve discovered that my favorite wallpaper primer also works great for this purpose. It sticks to just about anything, and dries almost dead-flat. I like Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime. I use a trowel (top) to spread on the smoothing compound. The 3″ stiff putty knife is used to knock off big-ish chunks on the wall, or bits of grit. I use the 1 1/2″ flexible putty knife to apply the smoothing compound in tight spots like around electrical outlets or between a door molding and a wall corner. The smoothing compound I use is drywall joint compound, and I like the Sheetrock brand Plus 3 version. Search hear (upper right) to see previous posts with photos of this material. Bottom of photo – trowel sticking to the wall shows you just how tacky this stuff is. Above that are blobs of the smoothing compound waiting to be spread around, and a little bit on the left initially smoothed onto the wall. At the top of the wall you see a section that I have already covered with the smoothing compound. This will dry overnight, and I will sand it smooth tomorrow. Sometimes I can float a wall, get it to dry, sand it smooth, prime, and hang the paper all in one day. But this texture is so heavy that more time is required for it to dry, so it will need an overnight sit. Some fans, plus the home’s heat and/or air conditioning help to pull moisture out of the smoothing compound and hasten dry time.
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