Before. A mom and two grade-school girls all vie for space here during the morning routine. Note the toothpaste splattered on the vanity countertop . It was on other surfaces in the room, too. I had to encourage the girls to be more careful, because substances like this can stain the new wallpaper .The mom fell in love with this pattern . What a perfect choice it is for this room! It’s perfect with the gold mirror frame, light fixture , towel bar , TP holder , faucet , and cabinet handles . Close up. This is a lightly embossed / textured vinyl surface bonded to a non-woven substrate / backing . This is durable and stain-resistant stuff , and also should strip off the wall easily and in one piece with no damage to the wall when it’s time to redecorate . I usually like to paste the paper , but you can also install this via the paste the wall method. The pattern is called Shimmering Foliage , and is in the Candice Olson line by York . I’ve hung it a number of times in various colors , and it’s always gorgeous . The home is in the Timber Grove neighborhood , near the Heights area of Houston .
Here before hanging wallpaper, I have removed the light fixture over the bathroom vanity . Some of the wall paint was stuck to the base of the light fixture, so was torn away from the wall when the fixture pulled away. In the photo, the cream colored area is the current semi-gloss paint , and the greyish area is the paint that is beneath it. Problem is, wall coatings surfaces should adhere to each other. In other words, the cream colored paint should not have peeled away from the grey paint under it. Usually this happens because proper prep was not done before the new layer of paint was applied. Surface coatings (meaning paint or wallpaper ) won’t stick to glossy surfaces, nor to dusty surfaces. So, if you’re painting over gloss paint, first a deglosser needs to be used, or a bonding primer . A good paint store guy ( Sherwin-Williams ) can advise you. If the original surface has dust , as from sanding or construction , this needs to be wiped off with a damp sponge , and that has to be rinsed clean frequently. Often a primer should follow that. Again, consult a knowledgeable paint guy. All of this is not so desperately important if you’re going to apply paint. Even on an unstable surface , paint simply dries and sits there. It only peels away if tension or pressure is put on it, such as removing the light fixture in the photo above. But wallpaper is different. Because wallpaper shrinks when the paste dries , tension is put on the seams . If the surface below is unstable , this tension can cause the surfaces below to come apart / delaminate . This can result in seams that pull away from the wall. This is not the wallpaper pulling away . This is the layers underneath that have actually come apart from each other. And it usually cannot simply be ‘ glued back down .’ You can do a search here to read previous blog posts about this issue.
Here I’m preparing to hang wallpaper on new drywall in a new addition to a 1930’s home in east Houston . First I’ve used a damp sponge to remove all construction and sanding dust. Next I’m going to apply my primer. It’s important to note that, even though this is wall is a new sheet of drywall, it’s not all the same surface. We have mostly large expanses of drywall / greenrock (the type of drywall that’s used in wet areas ). But at the joints , and covering where the screws and nails hold the drywall to the studs , we have joint compound . That’s the strips of white areas. And next to the crown and door molding and the baseboards is overspray from the paint that was applied to the wood trim. Here I’ve applied my light blue-tinted wallpaper primer over the top 1/3 of the wall. It’s important to be sure that the primer you use is suited for use under wallpaper . But also that it will properly adhere to and seal all the surfaces on the wall . My primer (below) will stick to just about anything. But this photo is interesting. Because my primer has been rolled on evenly across the wall , and cut in with a trim brush along the trim and corners . But you see that the primer is drying at different rates . On the right side of the photo, the primer is applied over the bare drywall, and it’s drying quickly. But toward the left, next to the door trim , the primer is drying more slowly. This is because there is paint overspray next to the door trim . The paint is semi-gloss enamel , and my wallpaper primer reacts with it differently from how it reacts to flat paint or drywall or other surfaces. Not a big deal. Just be aware of the need for different dry times due to different surfaces the primer is applied to. My preferred wallpaper primer is by Roman , called Pro 977 Ultra Prime. It’s not readily available, but you can find it on-line. All Sherwin-Williams stores can get it from the distribution center – but not all store managers know that, or are willing to do so. I get mine from Murphy Brothers Paint on Bissonnet near the Rice Village , who stocks it just for me.
This vintage tub is super cool , and period-appropriate to this 1926 home in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston . But if you need to get wallpaper on the walls around and above it, it’s really tricky . A ladder won’t fit in the tub , nor straddle it, and might damage it as well. So I keep this handy piece of plywood in my van . It’s a standard 2’x4′ size, and 1/2″ thick. That’s thick enough to distribute and hold my weight, but still light enough that I can carry it into homes and up staircases . It’s been sanded and then primed with white KILZ , to look a little nicer bringing into my clients’ homes, and also to reduce the chance of it leaving a mark on surfaces . The board is a perfect size for placing over various types of bathtubs or other items – as long as their top is flat. Note that I have cushioning and non-slip material between the board and the tub. In this case, I’m also using a one-step Rubbermaid step stool to boost my height. This might look a little scary, but it’s all actually very safe . I just need to be sure that my weight is distributed over the tub, and not over that unsupported section on the right. The stool does add a little more interest to the balancing act. But it’s all doable and safe if you just pay attention to your weight and movements. It did help that this family gave me plenty of peace and quiet while I was working .
Half bath sink room primed and read for wallpaper . I have plotted where the seams will fall and striped with dark paint , to prevent the light colored primer from showing in case the seams gap a bit. Artemis is available as a floor-to-ceiling pattern. So this partial coverage option is an innovative and fun variation on a theme . This is the same pattern Artemis Climbing Walls as yesterday, but reversed , so the flowers go from bottom upward . The ceilings are pretty high. The empty 5 gallon bucket is there on the counter (with non-slip cushioning beneath it) as an un-OSHA approved footrest , so I can safely reach the top corners . Artemis is a very popular wallpaper pattern , especially in this dark / black colorway . Manufacturer is House of Hackney . This install was on four walls in a powder room , instead of a single accent wall. Since this comes as a 4-panel mural instead of traditional rolled goods, the layout was a little more tricky . I cut out the little mock-ups from the instruction insert, and marked them as to roughly where each panel was separated . This is a non-woven material, and can be hung by the paste the wall method, as I did yesterday in the dining room. But today, in the small and chopped up powder room , I opted to paste the paper instead. You will note that this pattern continues uninterrupted from one mural to the next. If you have a wide space to cover and will need more than one mural , this continuation of the design is imperative. Not all do, so check and be extra sure, before you order. Speaking of ordering material … remember that for murals, you MUST add 2″ to EACH side – in other words, a total of FOUR INCHES to BOTH WIDTH and HEIGHT . This will accommodate trimming at floor and ceiling , and also will allow for wonky or off-plumb / level surfaces . Better yet, have your wallpaper installer calculate for you. Houston
There can be reasons for unstable walls, mostly cheap or poor quality paint, dust, someone applied paint over dust, improper prep, incompatible layers inside the wall built up over years (oil based paint, latex paint, dust, gloss paint, joint compound, etc.).
These can cause problems with wallpaper, mostly with the layers delaminating (coming apart), which causes the wallpaper seams to come away from the wall. Sometimes sheets of wallpaper simply fall off the wall.
This isn’t so much a problem with paint, because it just sits on the surface. But wallpaper shrinks when the paste dries, or expands and contracts with humidity, and can put tension on the seams
Before wallpaper goes up, one way to test for such unstable surfaces is the tape test . Use a razor blade to cut an “X” into the wall, scoring through the paint and maybe into a few layers beneath. Place a strip of blue painters tape over the cut. Pull the tape off the wall.
If paint comes away from the wall along with the tape, or if layers inside the wall come apart, you know you have to do a lot of specialized prep to stabilize the wall before hanging / installing the wallpaper.
This example is an interesting twist. The homeowner used a piece of tape to hold up a wallpaper sample. Then used an ink pen to write notes on it. When removed, the tape took the paint off – in the shape of the writing!
Obviously, this manufacturer has had complaints about their product. So they’ve come up with a CYA paragraph(s) designed to throw blame onto the wallpaper installer. Only thing is, most all of the above points they are trying to dodge ARE the fault / responsibility of the manufacturer – NOT the paperhanger . Gaps: poorly trimmed paper at the factory, possibly due to dull or wobbly trim rollers . Raised edges: poorly trimmed edges, or incompatible inks and substrates. Blisters: Usually due to off-gassing due to surfaces that don’t breathe and therefor trap moisture. Or to inks and substrates that are incompatible. … The substrate absorbs moisture from the paste and stretches , but the inks do not, resulting in wrinkles , warps , waffling , and / or quilting . But, hey – instead of doing some research and product development to improve our wallpaper , let’s just blame it on the paperhanger .
No boring beige or all-white walls in this home of a growing and active family in the Cypress / Jersey Village area of Houston. Throughout the home, the mom has added touches of blue, green, yellow, and pink, along with a heavy dose of mid-century modern furnishings and accessories. Time to pull the powder room into the mix! Originally, this room was wallpapered in a typical ’80’s pattern, complete with a border running below the ceiling. Did I say ’80’s ?! That wallpaper had been removed, and the walls were painted a dark tan. The room was very boring and boxy and uninspiring.But … add a little wallpaper and – nothing boring here! And the look definitely invokes the ’50’s, ’60’s, and ’70’s – can you say Flower Power ? Spoonflower sells several types of wallpaper. Definitely do NOT get their peel & stick (see my page to the right), and I’m not fond of their vinyl material. I do like their pre-pasted smooth , which is what my client chose. Spoonflower doesn’t come in standard dimension rolls. It comes in 24″ wide ” rolls ” of 1′, 3′, 9′, or 12′ lengths. So measuring and calculating is a little more complicated than for traditional wallpapers. (The mermaid kitchen towel on the right is also by Spoonflower – and they have wallpaper to match!)Strips of this material are designed to be overlapped at the seams. This is good, because it prevents gapping at the seams as the paste dries, and it also eliminates stress on the wall that could cause underlying surfaces to delaminate and come apart. Do a Search here to learn more. The downside is that this overlapped area does leave a ridge running the length of the seam. Most people don’t mind the look, especially with a busy pattern like this one. Pattern # 4330883 is called Party Posies. This material is custom-printed. The homeowner ordered 11 rolls, and here you can see how the manufacturer has numbered each of the rolls in sequence (5th roll of 11 total).
The powder room in this 1990’s home in the Houston Heights is being updated, and that means replacing the wall-to-wall vanity. Here the vanity has been ripped out. The areas where the backsplash was adhered to the wall have pulled the top surface of the drywall off. In addition, the plumber had to cut out a section of drywall in order to gain access to the pipes, so he can install the new faucet and handles. You can see the connections roughed in. You can’t hang wallpaper over this mess. First of all, it way too uneven – all those bumps will show under the new wallpaper. And the outline of the ” trapdoor ” will leave a big square ridge under the paper. Thankfully, the plumber secured the panel with drywall screws – most plumbers just leave you with a chunk of drywall floating in space, or even just an empty hole. Back to patching issues … in addition, the torn areas of drywall will absorb moisture from the wallpaper primer and / or paste and expand, creating bubbles that will show under the new paper. I needed to fill in dips and gouges, even out high areas, and prevent bubbling drywall. Gardz by Zinsser to the rescue! This is a penetrating sealer that soaks into porous surfaces and then dries hard, binding them together and creating a stable surface, as well as resisting moisture from water-based top coatings. This picture doesn’t look much different, but here the torn drywall is a little darker, indicating that the Gardz has soaked in and dried. The surface is now ready for a skim-coat. But first, the trap door needs to be addressed. I covered the cut areas with four strips of self-adhesive mesh drywall tape (no photo). Then I went over everything (wall to wall) with joint compound (commonly referred to as mud ) (no photo). Because of the thickness of the high and low areas, this had to be a thick coat of smoothing compound, and would take a long time to dry. So I went to the jobsite two days ahead of our install date, to do these initial repairs. And – no – you can’t use quick set or hot mud or 5 or 20 minute mud to do these repairs. These products are intended for repairs of small areas. Top coatings like primers, paint, and wallpaper paste do not stick well to them. Don’t let a contractor sweet-talk you into letting him use any of these to smooth a large area of wall.Here is the wall after my first, heavy, coat of smoothing compound. I use Sheetrock brand’s Plus 3.The bubbles you see just left of center show that Gardz didn’t 100% do its job of sealing out moisture, as a little expansion and blistering has occurred. Not a biggie. These will disappear when the surface is sanded. There is usually not a problem with these re-appearing.When I got to work two days later, the smoothing compound had dried. I sanded pretty smooth. Then vacuumed up the dust on the floor, and then used a damp sponge to wipe residual dust off the wall. This is important, because no coating will stick to dust. The wall still wasn’t perfectly smooth, so I did another skim-coat. This was much thinner, so didn’t need a lot of time to dry. I used a fan and my heat gun to speed things along. Once that was dry, I sanded it smooth, vacuumed and then wiped off all dust. Then rolled on my favorite wallpaper primer Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime. I have the paint store (Murphy Brothers in central Houston) add a little blue tint, so I can see it when I apply it to the wall. What a transformation! Now this wall is ready for wallpaper!
This Brooklyn Toile wallpaper by Flavor Paper on an accent wall in a nursery went up beautifully. The contractor had added new Sheetrock to one wall, and painted the other, old/original wall. I skim-floated both walls and sanded smooth, primed, and hung the wallpaper. Perfect! (Search here to see my original post.) But within less than a month, the homeowner contacted me and said that the wallpaper was ” coming off the wall .” It was a 1920’s bungalow in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston. And therein lies the brunt of the problem. The wallpaper itself is not ” coming off the wall .” What’s happening is that the wall surface itself is coming apart – or, delaminating . This is because multiple layers of paint and other substances on the wall may not be compatible. A probably scenario: In 1920 oil-based paint was used. Later someone rolled on a coat of latex paint. Then the homeowners redecorated and used gloss paint. Then some ” flippers ” who had watched too much HGTV slapped on more paint without bothering to de-gloss or prime first. And somewhere in the mix you’ve got cheap paint and dust and other incompatible materials.Over time, and especially when stress is put on the wall surface, such as when wet wallpaper paste dries and the paper shrinks, this stress can tug at the wall and actually pull these layers apart. There are other contributing factors, too, such as humidity, temperature, and location. I find it interesting that the worst parts of the affected seams were toward the top of the wall. This speaks of heat, humidity, and forced air (either hot or cold) coming out of the air vent just to the right of this wall. This photo is of the area over a door, very close to the air vent. See how thick that is? It’s not just the wallpaper. There are several layers of wall coming apart. Some layers are clinging to the back of the wallpaper, and some are staying stuck to the wall. Multiple layers, many years of coatings on this wall. Easy to see the many layers. The paper itself, my blue primer, my layer of smoothing compound, paint, more paint coming off the wall. Then multiple layers of paint and texture still clinging to the wall. This shot is just below the ceiling.Same thing happening at the baseboard at the floor. Layers of paint separating from the wall in chunks. Some pulled off easily, and some I had to chop off with my 3″ putty knife.Most of the paint and unstable surface material clung to the back of the wallpaper. This pile is just three strips – only half the wall. But it’s thick and stiff and heavy because of the paint stuck to the back of the wallpaper. There was so much and it was so heavy and bulky that I had to carry it out to my van in two trips. When I got home, it totally filled my trash bin. Here’s the wall once all the other layers came off. Brushing my hand over it revealed a layer of dust. No wonder the paint and other coatings wouldn’t stick. Nothing sticks to dust. It’s like flouring a cake pan… The paint or wallpaper will kinda stick – but won’t really stick. Paint on top may be fine. But add a little stress from drying / shrinking wallpaper, and you may end up with layers that pull apart. Wiping the walls with a damp sponge removed a lot more dust. But the wall still felt chalky. Whatever type of paint this was, it was not holding together. I had to stabilize this chalky surface. Enter Gardz, a wonderful product – Gardz is a thin, penetrating sealer that soaks into porous surfaces and binds substances together. It dries hard and creates an intact surface. The darker area in the picture is where I’ve rolled on a test area. Gardz is thin like water, and it runs and drips and splatters. It’s imperative that you cover floors, countertops, and baseboards, and roll carefully, and roll upward rather than downward, to minimize runs and drips. A microfiber roller holds the liquid well, and reduces drips. Gardz is made by Zinsser. No photo of the finished wall, but I was very pleased with the stability of the surface. No more chalk or dust. Now, there still could be unstable or incompatible layers deeper inside the wall. (Latex paint over oil without proper prep.) But for now I feel pretty confident that this wall is solid and will hold up to the next process in preparation for getting the new wallpaper up.
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