“Les Touches” Dots for 5-Year Old Girl’s Bedroom

Primed and ready

Pattern nicely centered on this focal wall

Close up

“Les Touches” (touch/dots/blots) is a decades-loved pattern by Brunschwig & Fils, a French company.

It has movement, but, having only two soft colors, is subdued. Thus it works nicely on one accent wall. Or, as in this young girl’s bedroom, on all the walls.

I hung this wallpaper in the Tanglewood / Galleria neighborhood of Houston.

Note that the hour-glass striped pattern is hard to see if you are only looking at a strip of wallpaper on your table. Before hanging, it is important to look up the pattern on-line or in a selection book, to see what the overall design and secondary pattern will look like when played out across a wide wall.

Faux Stone Pattern in Galleria Area Powder Room

Here’s an eye-catching design reminiscent of agate stone. I have hung similar patterns, but this is the first that has a continuous horizontal striped effect.

It really expands the feel of this small powder room, by visually pushing the walls away.

The wallpaper is by Thibaut. The interior designer is Rachel Goetz, of Rachel Goetz Interiors. This home is in the Galleria neighborhood of Houston.

From Diagonal to Vertical

This home in Bellaire was (Houston) built in the ’90’s, and the original wallpaper (top photo) in this bathroom was outdated and had begun to curl at the seams. I stripped off the old paper and primed the walls with Gardz, a penetrating sealer that is a good base for wallpaper to adhere to. See second photo.

The new tone-on-tone blue striped wallpaper updates the room, and adds a softer look. The homeowner chose cherry red accessories to accent the room. These are toned down by navy blue rugs and towels that are a slightly duskier navy and red.

This paper is a pre-pasted solid vinyl on a paper backing. Despite the economical price-point, I don’t recommend these types of papers, especially in rooms that are prone to humidity, such as bathrooms.

For starters, it’s difficult to install, and the seams never really look good. Second, the paper backing tends to absorb moisture from the air and then expand, and that causes the seams to curl. The vinyl surface layer is known for delaminating (separating from that paper backing). This, again, results in curled seams. This is not something that can be pasted back. So you are either left with curled seams or faced with repapering the entire room.

The best way to (hopefully) avoid this is to properly prep the walls, and to keep humidity to a minimum (avoid steamy showers, keep the A/C / heating vents open, run the exhaust fan, keep the door open).

Better yet, avoid purchasing paper-backed solid vinyl wallcoverings. If you shop at my favorite place (see the page on the right), you will be steered to beautiful papers of a better quality, while still at affordable prices.

Stripping Off The ’90’s To Reveal – The ’70’s

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Today I stripped paper off the walls of a typical entry in a typical ’60’s / ’70’s-era home.

The paper I removed was a pre-pasted, paper-backed, solid vinyl in a striped design. This is a typical pattern, and a typical type of material, for that time.

Under it was the original paper from when the home was built in the ’70’s. If you remember, that was back in the days of Harvest Gold, Avacado Green, orange, and Flower Power. This vintage paper has three out of the four!

After all these years, and despite having been covered up by the vinyl wallcovering, the orange paper was in perfect shape – tight to the wall, and brilliantly colored. The vinyl paper, on the other hand, was curling at the edges and was discolored.

This is partly due to age, but mostly due to having been improperly installed… previous installer did not remove the old wallpaper, and did not prime the walls, plus these pre-pasted, paper-backed, solid vinyls are just not good papers.

This home is in the Kirkwood / Briar Forest area of Houston.

Someone Had Fun Putting This Paper Up!

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I stripped this wallpaper off a powder room in River Oaks (Houston) today. It wasn’t the new homeowners’ taste, and I can pretty well understand why they wanted it gone, but, as a paperhanger, I had to admire the planning and plotting and math and workmanship that went into laying this out and putting it up.

Someone cut all those strips to the appropriate widths, perfectly centered both the striped and the toile patterns, and precisely mitered the corners. Some of the paper was overlayed and some was inlaid (double cut).

It was expertly hung and took a lot of patience and planning and precision. It was a treat for me to see this!