1950’s Bathroom Revisited – and Updated

This hall bathroom in a 1955 home in the Briargrove / Tanglewood neighborhood of Houston suffered damaged during Hurricane Harvey. The wallpaper had to be replaced. The homeowner chose the aqua trellis paper, thinking it would compliment the original sea-foam colored tile (which I happen to love, BTW). The contractor let his painter hang the new wallpaper. Both these decisions turned out to be mistakes.

I was called in to remove the trellis paper, prep and prime the walls, and then hang this beautiful and bold paisley pattern. Some of the photos are washed out, but in the good ones you can see the rich hues of this fun pattern. And it coordinates perfectly with the tile.

This wallpaper pattern is by Thibaut Designs, and was bought at below retail price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (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.

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Stripping Off Old Wallpaper

This hall bathroom in a 1955 ranch-style home in the Briargrove / Tanglewood neighborhood of Houston was damaged by a roof leak during Hurricane Harvey. The contractor’s guys did a good job replacing drywall and painting the woodwork, but they fell short when it came to wallpaper. See first photo.

But this just gave the homeowner a chance to choose something that coordinated better with the decades-old tile that she loves (and that I love, too), and to pick a paper with more color and flair, that is more suited to her taste. See tomorrow’s post for that.

My first task was to remove the existing wallpaper. It turned out that there were two layers of paper, and, in some places, THREE layers.

In the second photo, I have removed most of the top (new) paper, which is the aqua trellis by Thibaut. I took it off by simply tearing it off the wall. Below it, you see the green savoy (small, tight, squiggly) by Waverly. Interestingly enough, I have hung this a bunch of times – in the ’90’s. 🙂

This paper was attached more tightly to the wall. To remove it, I had to first separate the top inked layer from it’s paper backing. You can see this in the second photo. Once the top layer, with it’s water-resistant acrylic surface was removed, it left behind a white paper backing. I used a sponge and bucket of hot water to soak the backing. It didn’t take long before the underlying paste reactivated, and then it was ready to let go of the wallpaper. You can see clean wall revealed in the photo, where the layers of wallpaper have come away.

In one area of the room, I got a surprise. There was a third layer of paper under the others. The top vinyl layer had been stripped of eons ago, but the tan, gritty paper backing was left on the wall. You can see this in the third photo dry (light tan) and soaked with water (dark tan). Once that tan paper backing got soaked enough with several spongings with hot water, the paste reactivated and the paper was happy to come away from the wall.

I was uncommonly lucky today, because whoever hung the original wallpaper had taken the time to prep the walls correctly. First, he skim-coated the textured walls to yield a smooth surface for the paper to adhere to. Second, he applied good quality penetrating sealer. This sealer might have been Gardz, a product that I use now, or another similar sealer, perhaps even a solvent-based (as opposed to water-based) sealer. His sealer provided a hard surface for the new paper to stick to, and also gave a surface that was resistant to all the water I was using to strip off the old wallpaper.

Check out the fourth picture to see the huge pile of wallpaper I pulled off this one small hall bathroom.

Once all the paper was off, the walls were in very good condition. There were no delaminated areas, no lifted areas, nothing that needed patching – just an amazingly intact surface.

I did a few little touch-ups to a few little areas (I wanted to clean up 60 years of grime collected along the top of the tile), and then rolled on my favorite wallpaper primer, by Roman’s, their Pro 977 / Ultra Prime. It’s a white pigmented primer, and is a wonderful surface to hang wallpaper on.

Pearlized Chinoiserie Blends Historic With Contemporary

Chinoiseries (Oriental-themed patterns) date back hundreds of years. But they can be adapted for modern tastes, too. The muted colors and pearlized shimmer of this design by Thibaut fit right in with this young couple’s furnishings and with the architecture of their Briargrove (Tanglewood) area home in Houston.

The largish powder room originally had a Venetian plaster type finish on the walls, and it was painted a glossy one-color grey. Suffice it to say, the room was downright unattractive.

I smoothed the walls and applied a primer. As the paper started to go up, the homeowner exclaimed, “I didn’t expect the wallpaper to make the room look bigger. But it DOES!” She also loved the pattern, and the oh-so-very-subtle pearly sheen.

Leaving “Cute” and Heading for “Sophisticated”

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The tiny red and blue floral wallpaper pattern looked great in this Tanglewood powder room for a decade or more.  But when the homeowners wanted to freshen up the look of the house, the interior designers moved toward a more sophisticated look, and they chose this muted stripe pattern.

It’s more subdued, and it really goes nicely with the blue paint below the chair rail.

The interior designers for this job are Neal LeBouef and Anthony Stransky of L Design Group, a Houston-based company.

The wallpaper is a pre-pasted product by Sure Strip, and is in the Waverly line.  It goes up easily, and is designed to strip off easily later, when it’s time to redecorate.  I love this particular product.

 

Beautiful, Quiet-Toned Master Bath Remodel

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This poor couple in a home near Tanglewood, Houston, started the remodel of her master bathroom more than a year ago, and they have been living in disarray ever since (a pretty common story 😦 ). Wallpaper is one of the last elements of the job, so they are now almost finished and able to get back into the room!

This is a subtle stripe pattern with a faux crackle finish motif – quite unusual. It compliments their tile and paint very nicely.

The homeowner had asked me to place the pattern so that the “crackle” design would not fall against the shower tile, because she thought the tile and the wallpaper looked too much alike.  I was happy to accommodate this request.  But I was also concerned about how the stripe pattern would play out across the various walls.  Once that first strip is hung, all the other strips – and the stripes on them – pretty much have to fall where the geometry dictates.

But because the pattern was “fuzzy,” I was could play with it a little, and was able to manipulate it so that the stripes were centered on four key walls – on the wall next to the shower tile (shown), behind the toilet (shown), on a wall next to the closet, and on the wall with the sink.

This wallpaper pattern is by Designer Wallpapers, and was a dream to work with. It will hold up well in this bathroom.  It was bought at a discounted price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.

Beautiful View Today

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This week, I am wallpapering a “her” master bathroom in a home west of Tanglewood (Houston). There isn’t room in the house for my work table, so I set everything up on the patio just outside. No complaints!

(Although I am having a little trouble with the hot Texas sun drying out my strips of wallpaper almost as fast as I get them pasted. Keeping the pasted strips inside a plastic bag is helping to keep them  pliableand viable.)

Cheery, Colorful, Fun Butterflies in a Girls’ Shared Bathroom

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Boy, oh boy – did this turn out pretty! Two young sisters share this bathroom, and they are all about pink and frilly. This lively butterfly pattern in cheerful colors is just perfect in their sink room.

Putting the same wallpaper in the adjoining tub room was considered, but decided against because it might look too busy. I agree. Possibly a more subdued pattern using the same colors would work in the tub room.

But it’s more likely that the homeowners will opt to paper some other rooms – once they saw how good this looks, they asked me to measure other baths as well as the dining room!

I hung this in a 1988 home in Tanglewood. The interior decorator is Liz Mann. (See more of her work by doing a Search here.) The pattern is called Seraphina, and is by Anna French, for Thibaut Designs. It is a non-woven material and a paste-the-wall product.

Traditional to Traditional – Bold to Subdued

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The colorful botanical / bird original wallpaper is a classic design and color, but the homeowners had grown tired of it. Plus, as you see in the second photo, some of the seams had begun to curl. This is common with paper-backed solid vinyl wallpapers, especially in humid rooms (like bathrooms) or rooms with no air vents (this bath had neither A/C vents nor an exhaust fan) and the big reason why I try to steer clients away from this material.

The next photos show the new wallpaper. Originally, the homeowner wanted a woven faux grasscloth, which she saw that I had installed in a friend’s bathroom. But she could not find a color that worked with the color of the tile in this Tanglewood area 1950’s ranch style home’s bathroom. This damask pattern turned out to coordinate perfectly! It also cloaks the walls in a little pattern, without being busy (because it contains only two soft colors), and adds more interest to the room than the faux grasscloth would have.

This wallpaper pattern is by Thibaut Designs, and was bought at a discounted price from Dorota Hartwig at Southwestern Paint on Bissonnet near Kirby. (713) 520-6262 or dorotasouthwestern@hotmail.com. Discuss your project and make an appointment before heading over to see her.

This product was a paper-backed solid vinyl (read my comments above). It was thick and stiff and difficult to work with. The seams showed more than they should have, and there were edges of the paper that were warped by the plastic wrapper that never relaxed completely once the strip was pasted and applied to the wall, leaving slight waves at some seams. The material did not turn corners well, and I was never happy with any of the outside corners. There was also off-gassing, which is when a strip goes up and looks wonderful, but as it dries, moisture is trapped between the wall and the vinyl and has nowhere to go, so bubbles form under the paper.

Note to Self: Don’t let any other clients buy this product.

Pink Flamingos Again Today, in Another Little Girl’s Bathroom

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This pink painted bathroom is cute for a little girl – but plenty boring. The mother is an interior designer, and wanted to jazz up the room with this adorable flamingo pattern. In fact, I hung this same wallpaper two months ago in another little girl’s bathroom.

The family is planning to pull out and replace that window. If I had known this, I would not have hung the wallpaper today. It’s quite likely that replacing the window will damage the wallpaper, and some of the surrounding wall. Luckily, this wall is short and narrow, and the wallpaper is made to strip off easily, so hopefully if the new wooden trim does not cover damaged areas well enough, it will be relatively simple for me to redo that wall.

I hung this in a completely remodeled home in Tanglewood, Houston. It is by Cole & Son, a British company, and is a paste-the-wall product on a non-woven substrate. The interior designer is Elizabeth Mann.

Coloring the Edges on a Dark Faux Grasscloth

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I am not happy with the shading and paneling that is typical of most natural grasscloth products, nor with the unmatchable pattern. So I suggest that homeowners consider the fake stuff, made of vinyl. I love this faux grass, by Thibaut. It has a texture to it, if reverse-hung (every other strip is hung upside down) there are no color variations or paneling, it is strong vinyl on a sturdy scrim (fabric) backing, is water proof, scrubable, and virtually indestructible.

So I was pleased when this Tanglewood area couple took my advice and went with this product for the husband’s home office. I have hung it many times, in many colors – twice this summer in the navy blue. There is plenty of light and open space in this room, so the dark color will feel snug, but not cave-like.

Because the product is backed with white vinyl and reinforced with white woven fabric, it’s probable that some of that white will show at the seams. To prevent that, I took a navy blue oil pastel (from an art store) and ran it down the edges of every strip of wallpaper, taking care to do this from the back, to avoid getting color on the surface. Once the strips went up, the seams were virtually invisible.