Kinda bland, huh?Well, let me fix that for you! With just two colors and a simple, yet flowing design, this wallpaper pattern breathes life into this room – but doesn’t overwhelm. Pattern is nicely centered between the windows.This is another wall that also has two windows . I was able to center the pattern between these windows, too. Centering on two different walls in the same room is actually something of a feat – but that’s a story for another time. From a distance .This home has bull-nosed / rounded outside corners and edges, as well as the arch . Very tricky to get wallpaper trimmed to these areas neatly and evenly . See other posts for more info on this.Close up. The design has a weathered fabric texture sort of background . The copper colored foliage is lightly metallic , so has a slight shine – but only when viewed from certain angles , so it’s a subdued luster that’s added to the room . Note how the coppery color coordinates with the light fixtures / chandeliers . The wallpaper is by Graham & Brown , a good manufacturer with quality papers. The pattern is called Twining . This company makes nice non-woven papers , which have a polyester content which makes them stain-resistant and durable . They are also designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece and with no damage to your walls when it’s time to redecorate . G&B ‘s materials are usually flexible and nice to work with – although this particular one did tend to drag and tear when being trimmed – even with a new blade. I usually paste the paper , but non-woven materials can also be installed by paste the wall . The home is in the Oak Forest / Garden Oaks / Heights neighborhood of Houston . This project took me three days, to smooth the textured walls , and then hang the paper around four walls , and trim around those pesky rounded edges and the arch .
so-called peel and stick wallpaper is not nearly what the vendors’ websites make it out to be. It is neither easy to install , nor easy to remove . Nor does it hold up very long. I won’t hang it, neither will most of my colleagues across the country. Even our British counterparts have asked us to not let it slip across the pond! I won’t work with it, but one of the clients I visited yesterday did attempt to DIY try it on her own, with quite unsatisfactory results. She was kind enough to let me take photos . Here you can easily see wrinkles next to the door molding .gap at seam over door, warps along side door.hard to see, but there are large wrinkles. Plus notice on the right, paper is not adhering to the wall.seams shrink and gap.P&S material is not even trying to adhere to the wall.
A lot of these failures are due to the homeowners’ lack of knowledge and experience with peel & stick , and with wallpaper in general. For instance, the textured walls should have been smoothed / skim-coated / skim-floated before applying the material . Wallpaper wants to adhere to a smooth surface – not to the “highs and lows” of a textured wall . Next, most P&S instructions call for application on a semi-gloss paint , which needs to cure for 6-8 weeks. Also, read the fine print, and you’ll learn that P&S is meant as a temporary wallpaper …. you can plan on it starting to fail in less than a year. That’s where you get the failure to stick to the wall , and shrinking at the seams . Of course, here you can see that that happened within a few weeks / days. In this case, the material will be easily removable from the wall. But in most cases, if you’ve installed it on a smooth , primed wall, well, when stripped off, it will take the paint along with it. Leaving you with a nasty , pock-marked mess to have to repair. Click the link to my page on the right, about why to stay away from P&S.
Textured walls have been skim-floated and sanded smooth, wiped free of dust, primed, and are ready for wallpaper. For the master bathroom, the homeowner again chose a symmetrical, fanciful, woodland themed design in muted tones of cream on tan. The overall look is balanced and calm.I added the paper towel cushions to the cabinet handles on the left, to prevent them from slamming into and marring the new wallpaper. Close-up shows the unique light texture of raised ink on this material. The manufacturer is Schumacher, pattern name is Chenoceau. Usually I don’t like this brand, but this paper was actually pretty nice to work with. It does not have a protective coating, so the homeowner will need to be careful with splashes of water and toiletries to prevent staining, and to not let damp towels hang against the wallpaper.
Walls need to be smooth before wallpaper can go up, both for appearance and for good adhesion. Here’s just some of the equipment I carted into this house, to use while smoothing the textured walls of the powder room. In the black bucket is the smoothing / joint compound. To the left of it the grey metal thing is a space heater that pulls moisture out of the air. In front of that the white bucket holds wallpaper paste which will be used later.
The big square box is my Shop Vac, to clean up all the dust created when sanding the walls smooth. And fans – lots of fans – so speed drying of the smoothing compound.
Interestingly, the big black fan and the space heater both pull so much electricity that I cannot use them at the same time – they have been known to trip the circuit breaker!
I like walls to be nice and smooth when the wallpaper goes up, first so the texture doesn’t show under the new paper, and second so the paper has an intact, flat surface to grab ahold of. When homes have textured walls, I skim float them with joint compound (which we calls mud) to smooth them.
To skim float, I use a trowel to spread the smoothing compound onto the walls. In the top photo, the upper portion of the wall has been skimmed, and you can see the compound drying around the edges and in high areas. It goes on grey, and when it’s dry, it will turn white. The second photo shows the box that the mud comes in, enclosed in a plastic bag, to retain its moisture.
To help speed the drying process along, I set fans up blowing on the walls, as you see in the second photo. I have three fans, and they will be positioned differently for maximum air blastage. Having the air conditioner cranking away and the house fan on also help to circulate air and pull humidity out of the air. In small powder rooms where the door can be closed and the climate supervised closely, I get a space heater going, which also helps pull humidity out of the air. For stubborn areas, I get out the heat gun – it’s like a hair dryer on steroids. 🙂
Once the mud is dry, I sand the walls smooth, then vacuum up the dust that falls to the floor, then wipe residual dust off the walls with a damp sponge, and then finally prime the walls. For this application, I use Gardz, a penetrating sealer which soaks into the joint compound and binds it together, and which is also a good primer to hang wallpaper on. Sorry, no photo of the Gardz or of the finished wall – but you can Search here to find previous posts.
A lot of homes in the Houston area have some type of texture on the walls. In the suburbs, the tract home builders are using a fairly heavy texture, intended to lend a ‘rustic” feel to the home.
But when the homeowners want wallpaper, the texture has to be smoothed over, so the bumps won’t show under the new wallpaper, and so the new wallpaper has a flat, sound surface to hold on to.
In the first photo you see the texture of the walls in a new home in Fulshear (far west Houston). In the second photo, I have applied an initial coat of joint compound (smoothing compound). Once it is dry (tomorrow), I will go back and sand it smooth.
The next two photos show how much dust is generated by the sanding process. The plastic did a good job of containing it and keeping it off the homeowners’ floor.
In the last photo, you see how smooth the finished surface was.
Then the walls were wiped with a damp sponge to remove dust. Next came a primer. Once the primer is good and dry, it will be time to hang the new wallpaper.
This room is the right size, but is way too white for a precious baby girl. Mom had a vision to warm it up, and to bring some life and brightness in, too. This wallpaper is by Caselio, was made in France, but came to the U.S. via Mom in Brasil, to be hung in the new baby’s nursery in the Woodlands (Houston).
I started by smoothing the textured walls, and then I primed with Gardz. The pattern with the pink and lavender butterflies and dragonflies went on three “columns” in the room. The soft tan linen-look paper went on two opposite walls, one of which will hold a number of recessed shelves. After I papered the two linen walls and one butterfly wall, the homeowner thought about the room’s look overnight, and then decided to put the “fluttery” pattern on the remaining walls – around and over a door, and around a pair of windows.
The finished room is a serene and restful room, but the flying critters give it color and an uplifted feeling. Just perfect for a baby girl!
The baby’s nursery I am papering this week started with fairly heavily textured walls. (I didn’t get a pic of the texture.) If left on the wall, this texture will show through the new wallpaper, and it will also interfere with adhesion of the new paper.
The first day, I skim-floated the walls (troweled on joint compound). Because the texture was so thick, it was not possible to get anything approaching a smooth job, as you can see in the first photo.
The second day, I sanded the walls smooth, vacuumed, wiped the walls with a damp sponge, and then primed. In the second photo, you can see how nice and smooth and ready for wallpaper the walls are.
Not all parts of the country have texture on their walls, but here in Houston, we sure do. These photos show a pretty typical texture found on walls in newer homes in our area.
This style is called “orange peel,” but it’s much heavier than what was being used a few years ago. I don’t care for this style much, but it’s MUCH better than the old “popcorn” stuff that was popular in the ’70’s.
And, yes, the texture has to be smoothed out before wallpaper can go up. For one thing, the bumps will show under the paper, and it looks horrible. For another, you want the wallpaper to have a flat surface to grab on to. If texture is left on the wall, the paper can only stick to the tops of the bumps, and won’t have maximum potential for adhering.
Liner paper won’t disguise this sort of texture. Besides, it takes as much time to line a room as it does to skim float it. That’s my preferred method – skim floating with a layer of joint compound (sort of like plaster), then sanding smooth and then priming.
VoilĂ – a perfectly smooth surface for the new wallpaper!
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