Humidity Causes Curling Edges on Vinyl / Non-Woven Wallpaper

I hung this wallpaper about 10 years ago. It’s a main bathroom in a 1920’s home in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston. The home has been remodeled including updated HVAC systems , but surely still suffering from issues of humidity and air circulation.
At some point, the very edges of the wallpaper started curling back at the seams. This is more pronounced at the upper portions of the wall than at the chair rail. Meaning, humidity from showering is rising into the air, collecting under the ceiling, and working its way into the seams.
Once humidity gets into the backing of the wallpaper, it can cause the backing to expand. When that happens, the paper has to go somewhere. So it pushes itself away from the wall. Hence the curling that you see here.
What’s odd to me is that this happened with a paper that’s on a non-woven backing. Non-wovens are 20% polyester, so pretty resistant to moisture and humidity. I’m guessing that this company used less than the industry standard of 20% polyester. The material was super thin and flexible, which is unlike most non-wovens I’ve worked with.

I was able to make this look pretty good again. I used a putty knife to gently lift the compromised edges away from the wall, and then I worked some of my regular wallpaper paste back behind there. (no super glue or heavy duty paste or contact cement )
Then I used my heat gun – set on Low – to gently warm up the vinyl surface of the wallpaper . The heat gun served several purposes … It helped speed the drying of the paste , so it got tacky and held more quickly and firmly. The heat gun also ” melted ” the vinyl surface a wee bit, so it would curl back in the opposite direction.
I used a 3″ stiff metal putty knife to push the two edges of wallpaper back down to the wall. The metal knife heated up, too, and helped to get the vinyl to conform.
Using the heat gun and the metal putty knife also helped the two edges from the two strips to meet up together … sort of like two mountain big horn sheep butting their heads together . Butted together this way is better than one lying on top of the other.
I was really pleased with how well this worked. Sorry – no pics!

The brand is Super Fresco Easy .

Reverse-Hang Wallpaper Strips for Uniform Color

Here I am trying to find and understand the pattern match on this very difficult to see faux reptile pattern.

All this is more confusing because the little box toward the left on the bottom of the manufacturer’s spec sheet says this is a drop / offset match. It is not – it’s a straight match .
The instructions also say it’s 64cm (25 in). That’s not true, either. It’s more like 12.5″
The pattern also repeats itself once horizontally across the strip.

Found the match!

Problem is, when I followed the manufacturer’s instructions and hung the material as a matched pattern, I got paneling . This means that the material is darker along the left edge than along the right. Therefor, when you place one strip next to another, you see an abrupt color change , as shown in the photo.
The pattern may match, but this color variation is pretty unattractive.

So I followed what’s pretty standard protocol for textured and natural materials (such as grasscloth , paperweaves , cork , etc. and even this vinyl .) I took that strip off the wall, repasted it, and hung it again – but this time upside down.
By doing this, you’re hanging the left side of one strip against the left side of another strip. Because it’s meeting up with itself, there is no or minimal color difference.
Hard to explain, and if I could figure out how to draw some arrows or diagrams …. well, I can’t, so you’ll just have to try to follow along.
Bottom line – you hang one strip right-side-up and the next strip upside-down . Keep track of which is the top on each of your wallpaper strips, and mark on the wall (in pencil) which direction each strip should be hung.

Made by Super Fresco Easy , called Crocodile . Really nice material, and affordable.