




In addition, I had another full length strip the was ruined by a small stain. It might have been overlooked, but it was going to fall right at eye level in an entryway. Also, the pattern was such that I could not pull any of my tricks, like cutting a flower out of scrap paper and pasting it over the stain.
The red stripe you see is plastic “Danger” tape from the home improvement store. You can also use yellow “Caution” tape. Some installers use painter’s plastic cut into strips … although I find it too flimsy. I put this on the back / pasted side of my wallpaper strips to keep paste off the ceiling, woodwork, etc. And, as you see to the left of the top photo, when you bring a strip of wallpaper up against another strip, such as in your final corner, the plastic tape will prevent paste from transferring onto or staining the other strip of wallpaper.
After I make my trim cuts, I remove the excess wallpaper and the plastic tape – making sure to get the parts on both sides of my cut.
Now the paste can reach the wall surface, and adhere the wallpaper securely, with no paste residue left on the ceiling, molding, or wallpaper.
This is a grasscloth pattern called ” Acanthus ” by Schumacher.
It’s a pain to wipe wallpaper paste off some surfaces. Plus, it’s not always guaranteed that you’ll get 100% of it. Here’s a trick to eliminate the whole issue.
A strip of thin, flexible plastic along the top of the strip of wallpaper will keep paste from transferring onto the wall surface.
Some folks cut strips from painters plastic – but I find that stuff too flimsy, plus it’s clear and difficult to see.
So lots of us use yellow “Caution” tape, or red “Danger” tape.
Place it at the top of the strip of wallpaper you are about to hang. Position your strip, and trim at the ceiling as usual.
Then remove your trimmed-off piece, and take the tape along with it. Be sure you get the piece below your cut, as well.
Smooth your strip of wallpaper back into place. No need to wipe paste off any surface, and no smears, either.
This trick can also be used at baseboards or other bottom surfaces, as well as in corners.
This little trick made hanging this strip a whole lot easier, and it greatly reduced stress on the paper and the potential for creases or damage.
The red plastic tape is on the backside of the top of the wallpaper to keep paste off the cabinets.
The original paint in both these photos was a gloss or semi-gloss. When it came time to update, someone applied a coat of new paint right on top. Then the floor guys came and stained the floor. To protect the new paint, they applied painter’s tape. Unfortunately, when the tape was removed, it took some of the new paint along with it.
Believe it or not, even something as relatively gentle as wiping wallpaper paste off the woodwork is enough to cause poorly-adhered paint to delaminate.
This happens because the new coat of paint was not given a sound surface to grab ahold of and adhere to.
To have properly prepared the original gloss paint to accept the new coat of white paint, the painter should have done one or more of the below:
1.) Sanded the paint to knock off the gloss. This leaves dust residue, so that dust will need to be wiped off with a damp rag or sponge (rinsed clean frequently) or a Tack Cloth.
2.) Wiped down with liquid chemical deglosser, such as Liquid Sandpaper.
3.) Primed with a bonding primer, formulated to stick to glossy surfaces, and also formulated to serve as an appropriate base for the new paint.
A primer is also not a bad idea to follow up in the case of 1.) and 2.) above.
Yes, all of this is a whole lot of work, and it creates dust and/or odors, takes more time, and adds cost.
But it’s a step well worth the investment, because properly prepped and painted surfaces will hold up and look professional for decades to come.
My next strip of wallpaper will be placed to the right of the strip in the photo, and it will need to be trimmed horizontally along the rounded (bull-nosed) edge of the wall.
To keep paste from the wallpaper from getting onto the wall paint during trimming, I have placed special 2″ wide, thin blue plastic tape along the edge of the wall.
Once I have finished making my trim cuts, I will remove the blue tape. There will still be sufficient paste on the wallpaper to hold it to the curved edge.
No need to wipe anything, no paste on the paint, and no worries about paste causing the paint to crackle and flake off the wall down the road.
The owners of this new-build home in the Garden Oaks neighborhood of Houston knew that they wanted wallpaper in the dining room and powder room. So they instructed the builder to not texture the walls.
Well, as often happens, the drywall/paint guys didn’t get the message, so while they were spraying texture on the other walls in the home, they also textured the dining and powder rooms (sorry, no picture).
But – they got stopped before they primed or painted. This is good.
The textured surface had to be smoothed before wallpaper could go up. I’m quite good at skim-floating, and I quoted the homeowners a price for me to float and sand the walls smooth.
But the homeowner is also pretty handy. He opted to smooth the walls himself.
Since no primer or paint had been applied, the texture on the walls was raw mud (drywall joint compound). With no coating on it, this stuff is water-soluble. That means that the homeowner could simply wipe the walls with a wet sponge to remove the texture.
Well, it’s actually a bit more than that. You have to wet the walls well, and keep on scrubbing, to the point where the joint compound / texture softens up and can be scraped off the wall with a stiff putty knife, or scrubbed off the wall with a drywall sponge.
And that’s what the homeowner did. He did such a good job that he cleaned the walls all the way down to the bare drywall. That’s what you see in the first two photos. This guy was way more thorough and meticulous than any “professional” I’ve seen out there.
The best primer for bare drywall is Gardz (third photo). It penetrates and seals both the paper face of the drywall, as well as the joint compound “mud” that is troweled over the joints and tape (see white areas in photos).
So my task for today was not to work on smoothing the walls, because the homeonwer had done such a great job of that. OK, well, I did do a little tweaking in a few areas. But primarily, what I did today was roll on (and cut into the corners and edges) a good coat of Gardz.
Besides sealing drywall, Gardz is a good primer for wallpaper. So once the primer was applied and then dried (about an hour), the room was ready for wallpaper.
This room is supposedly ‘ready for wallpaper.’ Yet the baseboards have not been painted.
If the painters come to paint the baseboards, I already anticipate what will happen.
I have skim-floated the walls, and will sand them when I come to finish the job later. So some of my smoothing compound has slopped onto the baseboard. No big deal. When I put up the paper and trim at the bottom I will need to wipe paste off the woodwork – and at that time, I will wipe off any residual smoothing compound.
But if the painters come and slap paint on now, I know they will not inspect the baseboards before they paint, and will put their paint right on top of the globs of smoothing compound. Thereverafter, there will be small but unsightly blobs and bumps embedded in the paint.
They will also let their brush run beyond the molding, and onto my smoothing compound. This will make it impossible for me to sand the compound. It will also create a glossy surface that the wallpaper paste will not stick to.
If they use painter’s tape to ‘protect’ the wallpaper, when they remove the tape, they will either take the inked layer along with it, or they will pull the paper itself completely away from the wall.
Again I rant: Have ALL the other work done before the wallpaper goes up.