Marfa Toile in Heights Powder Room

We considered putting the wallpaper on all four walls, but the pattern would have been overwhelming in a small under-the-stairs powder room , especially with sloped ceilings crunching down into the space.  So the homeowner opted to paper just this one accent wall over the vanity / sink . 

This family loves West Texas , and visits Marfa when they can.  I positioned so the cattle ’s feet march right above the backsplash , and the horse lines up against the right corner , and even right into the angle at the top

Here it is, with the light sconces back (shades will be added later), and the rustic mirror frame in place (mirror glass will be added later). 

Tucked some paper into the little cubbyhole on the left under the vanity . 

 Cows , cowboys , horses , teepees , mesas , cactus , booze , buffalo , pups , and Prada – that’s Marfa!
 

Marfa Toile is in the very popular City Toile line by Katie Kime .  This is a fairly heavy vinyl surface on a non-woven backing .  Not my favorite, but it was OK to work with.  I did the paste the wall installation method .

Peacock Wallpaper in Powder Room

An all-black powder room (walls, ceiling, floor) seemed like a moody, innovative idea. But it ended up being stark and uninteresting, not to mention claustrophobic.

A little wallpaper, still in a dark color, maintains the original idea, but lightens the mood (and brightens the room) a whole lot.

We decided to paper the sloped area under the stairs, but not the actual ceiling itself. This pattern and color on the ceiling would have been overwhelming.

Another shot of the wall and sloped area, opposite corner.

There’s nothing like spending an hour under the console sink! Besides all these pipes to cut around, note that the countertop is one mere inch away from the wall to the left.

Peacock by Rifle Paper is extremely popular, and I’ve hung it a number of times. Search here to see previous posts.
Interestingly enough, other brands have made their own versions, but homeowners still gravitate to this design.
The material is made by York , one of my favorite brands. It’s a non-woven paste-the-wall product. It’s much more durable and stain-resistant than paper wallpapers, and is designed to strip off the wall easily and with no damage to the wall when you’re ready to redecorate.
wallpaper installation houston

Tropical Foliage Re-Do – Peel & Stick Debacle UnDone

Re my previous post about an under-the-stairs powder room that the homeowners attempted to install an argumentative peel & stick material … here is the finished room after I stripped off the P&S, smoothed the walls, and hung the new wallpaper choice. I engineered to place the sole philodendron leaf down the center of the ceiling.

Where the under-the-stairs ceiling met the area over the door, the two surfaces came together in a very sharp angle. It was difficult to get in there and work, and to get the paper tight into the joint. Fingers can be too fat, so this is where tools can squeeze in there and save the day. This is also my kill point . Do a search here on that term for more info. A long story and maybe an hour or more of work, but you will note that there are no pattern mis-matches here. The homeowners were out of town, so I felt unpressured and could take as long as I needed to make these three areas look seamless.

I love the hand-painted, water colory look of this pattern.

This photo shows the joint where the walls meet the sloped under-the-stairs ceiling. A wallpaper pattern will never match perfectly in these situations. At first, I tried a few tricks to ” fool the eye .” But I decided it looked crisper and less distracting to just trim the two papers where they met. Here, we had the advantage that the tropical foliage pattern was busy enough that, I mean, really, when you step three feet back, who’s gonna notice a minor pattern mis-match, anyway? The pattern does match in the corners on either side behind the toilet, though (see photo). Even though this only 4.5″ high, it does lend subtle continuity to the room.

When I see Candice Olson, I fast forward to glitz and glam and glitter and shimmer. Here her tropical foliage design is a bit more main stream. York is the mother company, and I love their products.

This home is in the Heights neighborhood of central Houston.

Historic “Lafayette” Bird Pattern in Galleria Area Powder Room

With a black granite floor, a black toilet, a dark wood vanity, and a dark granite countertop, adding black wallpaper to this under-the-stairs powder room seemed like a bold venture. But the gutsiness paid off – the finished room looks fantastic. And there is nothing dark or brooding about it.

In fact, the light color of the birds, along with the uplifiting feel of the vertical foliage in the design work together to give the room light and movement. Ditto the new paint color on the ceiling.

Sorry there is no photo, but this room, which is tucked under the stairway, has a deeply sloped ceiling. Originally, the homeowners considered papering the slope and the flat ceiling areas, too. But I told them that would make the room far too dark and closed-in. I suggested they pull a color from the wallpaper and dilute it to what I call a “whisper color” – almost white, but with just a whisper of color.

They could have gone with a light shade of tan (birds’ wings), green (plants), purple (birds), or salmon (birds, flowers). After consulting with the gal who sells the wallpaper (read below), they decided on a pale orangey-pink shade. I love the choice!

The ceiling does not look “pink.” Yet the hint of peachy pink adds warmth, while all the while pulls your eye up and adds a feeling of openness and even joy.

Fourth photo – the tan paint from the original faux finish wall treatment wrapped around onto the top of the backsplash. Once the dark paper went up, I didn’t want to have a gold stripe running around the top of the backsplash. So I used artist’s craft paint and a small brush to paint it black, to blend in with the granite backsplash. Once the wallpaper was up, to protect both the paint and the bottom edge of the wallpaer, I ran a bead of clear caulk along the top of the backsplash. This will prevent splashes of water that land on top of the backsplash from being wicked up under the paper – which could cause curling.

This historic “Lafayette” wallpaper pattern is by Thibaut Designs, and dates back to the 1800’s. In fact, it is 2″ narrower than most wallpapers, and I’m told that that is because it is printed with the same engraved rollers as were used back then. It’s a raised-ink printing process, and the material is pre-pasted. I experimented with a couple of pasting techniques, and found that the old-fashioned method of pulling the strips through a water tray resulted in even saturation and activation of the paste, and the flattest seams.

This paper 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 (inner loop Houston). (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.

World Map – A Lesson in Measuring

Regarding the previous post about the world map … with murals, it’s always important to measure carefully before ordering. Some maps are custom made to fit your specific wall, and some come in a set size. In both cases, it’s best to have the paperhanger measure the space and tell you what to order.

When the mural is custom-sized to fit your wall, it’s imperative to add an extra 2″ to EACH SIDE of the map. This means that you will have an extra 4″ of both width and height. This will allow for trimming at the ceiling and floor and opposite ends, as well as accommodate crooked walls and unlevel floors and ceiliings.

In the case of this world map, the product came in one set size. Turns out the mural was half a foot or so taller than the wall. Good. That allows a little extra for trimming at the ceiling and floor.

But the width came out to be exactly the same as the width of the wall. Sounds perfect, huh? NOT! Because when I butted the mural up against the door frame on the right, that gave a nice, tight fit – but since that frame was not perfectly plumb, by the time the 12′ of mural reached the opposite wall, it had gone cattywhompus, and that resulted in a crooked gap at the left side. See first photo.

In addition, the ceiling was way off level. That meant that ceiling line sloped downwards and “ate up” some of the print at the top of the mural.

If I had had that extra 2″ of “bleed” area all around each side, I could have hung the map a bit off-plumb, so that the print would have lined up with the un-level ceiling. And I would have had enough to meet both the right side of the wall and the left side.

But none of that happened, so here’s what I did. I butted the mural up against the door frame on the right side of the wall. That left a gap when I got to the left side of the wall. See first photo. So I took some of the paper that was trimmed off at the floor, found some blue water that was the same color as the part of the map on the left side, and fit it in to that narrow 1/2″ gap. The pattern doesn’t match perfectly – but you don’t notice it. And it is the part of the wall that will be behind the door.

In the photos you can see that there is part of the map that extends over the tops of the doors on either side (only the right hand side and door are shown). This area extends further into the wall than the door frame molding that the mural was butted up against. This left another gap, this time about 1″ wide, over each door.

Again, I was able to take some scraps that had been trimmed off and find a piece with color and design that “kind of” blended in, and I patched those in in the 1″ gap over the doors. Again, the pattern doesn’t match perfectly, but the color and the themes do, and over the doors, no one is going to notice.

One final trick … Remember I said that the ceiling was not level, and so it was chopping off some elements at the top of the wall? Those were letters that spelled “ARTIC OCEAN.” As the mural moved across the room, and as the ceiling moved along with it, we had three-quarters of an “A” on the left, and only an eighth of an “N” on the right. (Note: If I had had enough extra height, I could have pulled the entire mural up high enough that all those letters would have been cut off. Another reason to consult the installer before ordering a mural. 🙂 )

Anyway, the eye wants to see uniformity, not letters getting smaller as you move across the room. So what I did was, I decided that those words really weren’t important at the top of the wall – especially because the corresponding letters spelling “SOUTHERN OCEAN” had been cut off at the bottom of the wall, and also because the letters were so thin and unimportant that no one was going to see them way at the top of the wall, anyway.

But if someone did look up there, he wouldn’t want to see the name of the ocean getting progressively smaller. So I took some scrap paper that matched in color, and cut small patches, and then glued these over the letters “A,” “R,” “T,” “I,”… and so on, to cover them up. I used a special adhesive that would stick to the glossy map surface.

Once they were gone from view, and the gap at the left edge filled in, no one will be able to see anything crooked on this world map!

Bottom line: Have the paperhanger measure BEFORE you order the mural.

Small Print, Shimmery Finish Brightens a Powder Room

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This ’90’s home in West University Place (Houston) is being remodeled, and the homeowners wanted the wallpaper put up before the plumbing fixtures went into the room. I was happy, because it is sooo much easier to hang paper when you don’t have to work around the toilet and sink. The vanity is particularly tricky, because it stands on four tall legs and is open underneath, so you have to cut around the legs and pipes.

This small pattern and two-tone color scheme does not overwhelm the room, but adds sparkle and personality. The homeowner and I decided it would look better on that sloped part of the ceiling, even though there is no crown molding at the top.

This pattern is by G P & J Baker, a British manufacturer, called “Flora,” pattern # PW 4507. It is a thick, somewhat stiff, and somewhat spongy non-woven material, and is a paste-the- wall product.