I stopped at an estate sale this morning, at a home that was, I’m guessing, from the 1940’s or 1950’s. Inside the kitchen cabinets, the front edges of the shelves had been decorated with cherry -themed wallpaper border. (The shiny stuff is Scotch tape.) You can tell that the kitchen has been remodeled. I’m guessing that the wallpaper is older than the cabinets and hinges and tile below. It reminds me of the old stock that we had in the basement of our family business wallpaper and paint store in St. Louis .
The bright colors of these old wallpapers always seem to hold up exceptionally well. The rust-hued discoloration is what we call foxing – I learned that term from the Antiques Road Show . Google to learn more. If you love vintage wallpaper as much as I do, and would like to see more cool patterns, or even install it in your own home (as I have!), visit Hannah’s Treasures , or Rosie’s Vintage Wallpaper . Note that this authentic stuff is decades old and delicate , and requires special installation materials and techniques . houston
…But it sure looks like one! No all-white minimalist décor for these clients. Their home is filled with warm colors , antiques , and elegance .
So this luscious mural depicting life in early colonial Virginia fits right in.
This mimics the look of the imported hand-painted works on silk , which can cost $1000-$2000 per panel. And require extensive and expensive installation techniques. This mural is much more budget-friendly, and on a nice non-woven substrate, so easier to install.
The windows really stand out, with the thin strips of mural in between them. I kept the height of the background at the same height of the scenes on either side. At first, I had blank sky at the top. But got to looking at those trees over the windows and decided that the leaves needed to extend under the windows, too. I used scraps to piece in the dark area that fell below the height of the wainscoting . The homeowner was able to choose the panels she wanted, and specifically asked to have tree tops showing above the windows.
That’s my work table set-up out in the adjoining room.
The mural comes in panels, and is custom-sized to the walls … but not so intricately as the expensive brands. You just send good measurements and drawings , and the company works everything out on the computer. The material is digitally-printed .
Corner shot of river and village .sheep wheat harvest
Beautiful matt finish, and a hand-painted appearance . cows
The company provides a schematic of where each panel will fall on your walls. This is essential, before getting started on the install . Unfortunately, they didn’t include it with the material. And my call to their office went unanswered and unreturned. Not happy about that. Luckily, the homeowners had been emailed the diagram s , and were able to print them off and give them to me.
All the material for this dining room , plus the hall bathroom that I’ll do tomorrow, came in that one huge roll.
A lot of open floor space is a big help. Here I am rolling it all out, cutting the panels apart, checking sequence and pattern match, and doing a rough removal of the selvedge edge.
The panels are not pre-trimmed , so you have to take a straightedge and razor blade and meticulously trim off the unprinted edge . This takes precision and time and can be pretty tedious. Not really a DIY feature. Most other brands of digitally-printed murals come pre-trimmed . Also, these panels were 36″ wide, which are tricky to work with on my 33″ wide table, plus somewhat difficult for lil’ ol’ short stuff me to handle 9′ up on the ladder.
This is called Virginia Mural , by designer Paul Montgomery , and is by the Mural Source . The home is in the Heights neighborhood of Houston.
This company makes paint . They’re mighty proud of their paint. They also make wallpaper . Somewhere along the line, decades ago, some higher-up got the idea that, instead of coloring their wallpaper with tried and true ink , like every other company out there, they would be unique and put their paint on the surface of their wallpaper. In my opinion, this is not a good idea; not a good match. There are lots of reasons why water-based paint is not a good coating for wallpaper. Let’s discuss: One third the way down the far right of the photo, the mfgr addresses what they have given the cute term paste attack . Well, there’s nothing cute about this. When wallpaper adhesive encounters water-based paint , it can eat into the surface and cause the paint to crackle – in fact, 30 years ago when faux-finish decorative treatment was popular , crackled finishes were very popular. And they were created by coating a surface (picture frame, furniture ) with paste ( like (animal) hide glue ) and then topping it with a water-based paint. Immediately or over time, the paint would refuse to adhere to the adhesive , and pull back, creating a craggly surface . This might look cool on a piece of furniture that you want to look distressed or aged. But it’s not so fun when paste gets on the surface of your new wallpaper, and a week later the color is flaking off. This also happens when wallpaper paste gets onto a painted ceiling or woodwork and isn’t wiped off adequately. Moral of the story: Wallpaper paste and paint are a disastrous match. What’s more disappointing is that the manufacturer knows this, and makes notes in the installation instructions ,,, but continues to coat its wallpaper with paint instead of ink .
Another issue with paint as opposed to ink is burnishing …. the surface of the material having a sheen wherever it’s brushed or wiped . Well, you say – just don’t brush or wipe the wallpaper . Folks, it’s not that simple. You see, to get it to stick, wallpaper has to be pressed against the wall. And to do that you need to use a smoother brush . Additionally, a plastic smoother / squeegee and / or a seam roller are common tools used to apply the wallpaper to the wall. Without these tools , well, the wallpaper can’t be pressed against the wall and made to stick. And quite often a damp cloth is needed to smooth, or to wipe off stray bits of paste. Yes, you can use a long-bristled smoothing brush , light pressure , and a delicate touch. But it’s still highly likely that this danged paint will burnish and sheen . Here’s a blog post that addresses just that. https://wallpaperlady.wordpress.com/2019/10/10/farrow-ball-disappointing-quality/ Again, the fact that the mfgr addresses this in their instructions tells us that they are aware of this problem. But sort of shoving the onus off onto the installer . Instead, what they ought to be doing, IMO, is getting rid of the danged paint and start using a good quality ink!
Top paragraph, interesting information about how they create this particular design. Second paragraph … their insistence on using their water-based paint is the main problem. You see, water-based paint, and particularly latex paint, react negatively with most forms of adhesives. That’s why wallpaper installers use acrylic primers instead of latex under their wallpaper. Acrylic primers dry hard, and are not subject to the flaking and crackling that latex products are. Also note above, the statement that their wallpapers are stain-resistant , and also wipeable. Not true, IMO. The pulp substrate that this company uses is porous and thirsty, and will absorb stains readily. Ditto for their matt-finish paint. And “wipeable” sounds hardy – but, in reality, in wallpaper industry jargon, ” wipeable ” is the lowest level of cleanability . Remember burnishing? Wiping this delicate material too much , no matter how soft or dry or damp or gently , is likely to result in a sheen on the surface .
I’m not saying don’t buy Farrow & Ball wallpaper. But I am saying that if you do go with it, prepare to use meticulous installation techniques. Even so, be prepared to live with some imperfections. That said, as I like to say, for every cool pattern made by a high-end company producing material that’s difficult to install and may yield less than ideal results, there are other manufacturers making similar patterns that are better quality (IMO) and more affordably priced.
Those shelves won’t come out of there. So, yes, I’ve got to work wallpaper over, around, and under them. All while keeping the pattern matched in each of the alcoves. And also working a 27″ wide strip of wallpaper into the alcoves, matching the pattern , and then moving from right to left around the obtuse angled corner . And keeping the left edge of that strip straight and plumb , so the subsequent strip will butt up appropriately. Too complicated to get into all the tricks and techniques , but let’s just say that I spent a good couple three hours on just this shelf alcove.
Here it is done. I was really pleased with how it turned out. The pattern matched near perfectly in each of those six niches , and the left edge of the wallpaper lined up with my laser level line like a champ.
Oh, yeah, and I had to squeeze around that cat shelf attached to the windowsill on the right.
Before I could get the paper into the shelf niches, I had to position a 9.5′ long strip onto the wall to the left of this window , wrap some inside the face / return of the window , and then down under the window – without stressing or warping or tearing the wallpaper . Actually, since I was moving from right to left, this strip started below the window, worked its way up the wall, into the window return , and also into each of those six shelf niches. This one strip to the left of the window probably took at least an hour, maybe more.
Before the strip in the previous photo, came this one, to the right of the window, and was equally tricky and time-consuming. Two hours, probably. The pattern had to match the motifs on the paper along the back of the cabinets. Then work the strip both down the wall alongside the base cabinets, and then up the wall alongside the hanging cabinets – and wrap into the face of the window return. Without tearing or creasing the wallpaper . All easy to look at, but very tricky to accomplish. Difficult to explain the intricacy. I’m glad this was a non-woven material, which is resistant to tearing . All done – what a bright , cheery spot to spend your work day!
The pattern is called Peonies Hard to see here, but the gold buds are actually metallic , so they shimmer a bit.
This is made by Rifle Paper , which is manufactured by York , one of my favorite brands. After supply chain issues with raw materials that caused problems during the Pandemic , their wallpaper is back to it’s old, good quality self. Non-wovens are strong and durable , and resistant to stains and splashes. Properly installed , they’ll strip off the wall easily and with no damage to your wall when it’s time to redecorate . This home is in the Montrose area of Houston .
Spa tub area before Done. Note flowers centered on flat wall behind the bathtub . All white just isn’t doing anything for this room. Soft colors and a little shimmer are warm and soothing . Some of the green foliage shows up better depending on the angle you’re viewing from. Scroll to bottom of wall . Getting around these outside corners , and inside corners , was really tricky . I was really pleased with the way the paper performed.
Close-up. OK, I see the parsley. But who threw in the “cow” part?? Weird name, pretty design . I’ve had a couple of clients interested in this pattern .
The brand is Sanderson , a British company. Usually this brand comes in what we call a non-woven or paste the wall material , which is strong , durable , stain-resistant , dimensionally-stable , and strips off the wall easily when you redecorate. Today’s install , however, was none of these. The material is what we call a traditional British pulp . Which has a beautiful matt finish , and hugs the wall tightly. BUT … pulp papers are darned tricky to hang , and require special care while using the room. They are stiff , brittle , get soggy when wet with paste and tear easily , they drag and rag and tear when you try to trim with even a sharp , new blade , are not flexible . They also have no protective coating , so are easily stained by hands , water , toiletries , etc. And not a simple process to remove them, when you redecorate . Still, they’re lovely , classic materials and add an elegance to the room that modern papers cannot . Suffice it to say, with all the angles and turns , and the delicate material , this master / primary bathroom took me two days to prime and hang . More on installation techniques in a future post. The home is in the Memorial Park / Rice Military / Crestwood / Bayou Bend area of central Houston . cowparsley
First, note that this wallpaper came in two different runs . This is bad, because each run of a printing job will be a slightly different shade from other runs. This color difference shows up on the wall and looks bad. Do a Search here to see previous posts about this. Next, note that one label says the material is ” paste the wall ” and the other says ” paste the paper .” This is unusual, because usually Rifle Paper is always paste-the-wall – another name for a non-woven material . So why does one say it’s paste-the-paper ? Turns out that both of these runs – and all of the wallpaper I had for this job – were paste the paper. This was totally unexpected, especially since the label as well as the specs I had scouted out on line ahead of time said paste the wall . As far as install techniques, these two methods are completely different animals. Paste-the-paper takes a lot more time, and also is less durable if exposed to water or stains Not a biggie for me, because I’m familiar with installation techniques of both types. But if a homeowner was trying to DIY his room and was expecting an easy paste-the-wall , he would be in for a much more difficult go-round with the paste-the-paper .
Re my previous post, about centering the pattern on the fireplace wall … Once a wallpaper pattern has been positioned on the first wall, as subsequent strips are placed around the room, the pattern falls in its proper sequence. Meaning, you have no control over how the design will land on all the other walls.
In this room, I felt it was important for the design to be centered on the fireplace wall (see previous post). But the headboard wall was equally visually prominent, and it would sure look best if the scalloped design could be centered on this wall, too. But the way the wallpaper strips were following each other, the pattern would fall off-center when it hit this wall.
I thought I could make it look better. It took careful engineering, precise measurements, a laser level, some secret tricky techniques, and a whole lot of time (coupla hours). But I got the swoopy design centered behind the bed and between the windows and light fixtures, so the whole area looks perfectly balanced.
To achieve this, I had to ” shrink ” the design above and below the windows. (Do a Search here to see other posts explaining this process.) And I did end up with a pattern mis-match in the corner to the left (sorry, it’s not visible in this photo). But I figured that a mis-match in a corner 17″ from the floor, plus a 4″ high section over a window were a fair trade-off for that beautiful symmetrical headboard wall.
For the record, I worked it out so that the mis-match in the corner was only about 1.5″ off from the actual match. No one’s gonna notice! So sorry I forgot to photograph this.
I will say that the features of this room, as well as the way the pattern was printed on the wallpaper, plus the pattern itself, helped immensely to achieve this balanced outcome.
The design is called Versailles and is by Schumacher.
Originally, this downstairs bathroom in a newish home in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston was painted a mocha brown. It looked OK, but lacked luster and life. The homeowner envisioned more texture and color, plus a tiny bit of dazzle. She was considering grasscloth.
During our initial Sunday afternoon consultation, luckily she heeded my warnings about the problems with grasscloth – visible seams, color shading differences between strips, staining from water splashes or little ones’ hands, etc.
She chose this textured vinyl faux grass pattern by York instead. What a winner this turned out to be! Because there is no pattern that can be matched, you still see the seams. But, because the color is so homogeneous, there are no jarring shade differences. In the sink photo, note that you are seeing a shadow, not a shading of color.
The color variations within the grass-like design are more pronounced than in other brands (for instance, the Thibaut versions), and so it looks more like real grasscloth, and you can see the various colors even from a distance.
There is a pleasing texture that can be seen and felt. And, because the material is a heavy vinyl, it’s quite durable and water- and stain-resistant. What’s more, because there was no pattern to match (that’s called a random match), there was very little waste – in a room with a tad less than 9′ ceilings, I got three strips out of a 27′ long double roll bolt (usually you only get two strips).
I did follow typical grasscloth-installation techniques for this product.
Because the lack of a pattern match meant that the seams were visible, I took precise measurements and “balanced” the width of the strips in the various areas in which they were hung.
Because there was still a bit of a color difference between the right side and the left side of each strip, I also reversed the top and bottom of every other strip – a little trick that minimizes visible color differences by placing the right side, for instance, of each bolt of paper next to itself on subsequent strips. That sounds confusing, but it’s valuable trick of the trade.
The navy blue brings a welcome shot of color into the room. The gold metallic touches add sparkle, and coordinate smartly with the light fixture (not shown). The homeowner will soon trade the chrome faucet for one of brushed gold.
I try to guide my clients to buy good quality wallpaper. But sometimes they don’t listen, or don’t understand, or they shop before they get my information packet, or they’re concerned about the price-point, or they just fall in love with a pattern and don’t pay attention to the quality.
In this case, the homeowner loves the color and design. Unfortunately, the paper is one of my LEAST favorite types – a pre-pasted, paper-backed, solid-vinyl. And it is living up to its (bad) reputation.
I tried several pasting techniques, but still the paper backing absorbs moisture from the paste and expands, which forces it to curl backward. The causes the seam to “pouch” up a little. I’ve tried every trick I know, but still the vinyl wants to curl back from the paper backing, leaving this curled seam.
I am hoping that, once this paper is dry, it will shrink nice and tight against the wall, and the seams will look better.
There is still the worry, though, that over time, moisture and humidity from this master bathroom will work its way into the seams, and cause the paper backing to expand, and allow the seams to “pouch” up again. If that happens, even with proper prep, this paper may not last more than a few years.
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