Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Trash Bag!

At the end of the day, I take all my wet / pasted / trimmed scraps , and all my dry scraps (” waste ” from matching the pattern ) and roll them up into one neat bundle . A swipe of wallpaper paste on the last strip holds the whole thing together. Tuck under my arm and tote to the truck. Once home, into the trash it goes!

Kill Point Over Door

If you’re hanging wallpaper around a room with four walls and four corners , virtually always when that last strip of paper meets up with the first strip you hung some hours ago, you’ll have a mis-match of the pattern . That’s why we try to tuck this in an inconspicuous place like a 1′ high corner above or behind a door.
But sometimes you don’t have a hidden corner , and all four corners are highly visible and run the full height of the wall. In these cases, it looks much better for the pattern to match floor to ceiling , as you see in this photo. But you have to put the kill point somewhere!

In these cases, a more logical and less noticeable location for the mis-match is the shorter area over the door – where nobody is going to be spending much time looking at, anyway.
My first strip is on the left, and the rest of the powder room has been papered, and I’m working my way from the right to meet up with that strip on the left.

Here it is going into place. I’ve matched the pattern on this new strip to the strip on the left . The strip is too wide, and is overlapping the strip on the right. And, as expected, the pattern doesn’t match up on the right.
As an aside, that blue plastic tape you see at the top of the strip of wallpaper is to keep paste off the ceiling. Once I’ve trimmed that excess paper off, I’ll remove the tape , and the ceiling will be nice and clean – no paste residue to wipe off or worry that it will be visible or damage the paint / cause flaking .

Here I’ve trimmed that short strip at ceiling and above the door trim. As you can see, it’s overlapping the strip on the right, leaving a bump, and plus, the pattern doesn’t match .
To be honest, with this busy pattern and this short area up over a door , this 1′ of mismatch isn’t going to be very noticeable. But I wanted to make it look better.
I’m going to splice these two strips together.
In the photo above, the left strip is overlapping the strip on the right. I don’t like the way the pattern is lining up. A splice will leave branches cut off, and will be noticeable.

So here I’ve reversed things and have overlapped the strip on the right on top of the strip on the left . Now the pattern gives a better option for a splice . I like that there is a curved vertical tree trunk that I can cut along. This will help disguise the splice.

So now to do the splice, I have push hard enough on my blade to cut through two strips of paper. But it’s important to not score the wall surface beneath. When the wallpaper paste dries and the paper shrinks a tad, it will put tension on the wall surface . If that underlying surface is not unstable or not sound, due to being cut into, or dust is another factor , that tension can cause the wall surface to pull apart , and the wallpaper can come away from the wall. Actually, it’s not the wallpaper coming away – it’s the layers of the wall pulling apart.
So I use these thin flexible polystyrene plastic strips under where the splice will be. You can’t cut through them!

Here I’ve pulled the two strips of wallpaper away from the wall and am positioning the plastic strip under where the splice will take place. Next, I’ll smooth the two wallpaper strips back into place, with the right one overlapping the one on the left.

I like to hold a single edge razor blade in my fingers , but you can use a blade holder or trim knife , too.

Here I’ve free-handed my cut , trimming along the vertical tree trunk at the top , then straight down through blank area, then through some branches, and finally at the bottom again trimming along a curved vertical tree branch. Now I’m removing the excess from the left side of the trim / splice .

Lifting the strip on the right so I can remove the excess piece that was trimmed off on the right.

Now removing the polystyrene strip.

Using my plastic smoother to gently press the two trimmed strips of wallpaper into place.

Here it is all done. Trimming along the vertical branch at the top has helped disguise the splice. The bottom area doesn’t match 100% perfectly, but I’m OK with that. I’ll work on smoothing out that teensy overlap and the seam will be nice and flat.

All done!

The wallpaper pattern is called Luminous Branches and is by York . It’s non-woven / paste the wall material , and very nice to work with, durable , stain resistant , and will strip off the wall easily and with no damage when you redecorate .
If you’re interested in the source for the splicing / double cutting strips , or the thin blue tape to keep paste off the ceiling, please email me at wallpaperlady@att.net

Waiting To Trim The Skinny Strip

Here I am, hanging wallpaper from left to right . I’ve just placed the narrow strip on the left – but have not trimmed it against the door molding all the way down. This is because skinny strips like this are often unstable and can twist to the right or left, or fall with an edge that’s not straight . This makes it difficult for the subsequent strip to butt up against it perfectly .
The strip on the right is still folded and booked , and I’ll release it and position it in a minute .

So I’m going to hang that next, full-width strip now. Because it’s wider, it’s more dimensionally-stable , and will fall ceiling-to-floor without warping or twisting . Especially true since this is a non-woven material, which are quite strong and stable .
Note I’ve striped a little thinned pink paint under where the seams will fall, to prevent the white wallpaper primer from showing, in case there are tiny gaps at the seams (which can be common).

Here you see that there is, indeed, a gap between the full-width strip on the right and the narrow one on the left. Because I have not yet trimmed that narrow strip on its left edge against the door molding, I’m able to move that narrow strip a teeny bit to the right, to eliminate that gap.

Here it is with the gap closed.
Note, that little bump on top the baseboard on the left is caused by caulk or debris or something – it’s a near-100 year old house with decades of build up of paint and whatnot. Not a biggie. The homeowners love their historic home !

Here’re both strips trimmed and smoothed into place.
Oh, and also my standard go-to tools .

The pattern is called Indienne , in the Amaranth colorway .

Manufacturer is House of Hackney . Good quality paper , and innovative patterns and colors .
wallpaper installer houston wallpaper lady

Adventurous Color And Pattern For Artsy Family

Hall leading to bedrooms and bathroom in 1936 bungalow with classic floor plan found in these age and style homes . No, the family doesn’t spend a lot of time in this tiny space , but the homeowner wanted to jazz it up.

Here you go – funky , fun , and colorful ! Makes the space feel larger , too.

The room has five doors , and the bold wallpaper really stands out against the white paint .

Close up .

The pattern is called Indienne and is by the House of Hackney . This installer – friendly non-woven material comes in one large roll that you cut apart into four panels or strips , and then hang in sequence . In the picture above, you see how the four panels look placed next to each other. The final width is about 6′ and the height is 10′ 4″. Most people have shorter walls , so the wallpaper can be trimmed to your ceiling height .
Non-woven wallpapers can be hung by pasting the wall , but I usually prefer to paste the paper . They will strip off the wall easily and with no damage to your walls when you redecorate later .

This company custom-prints your paper when you order .

Here’s their instruction sheet . The printed instructions come in about 10 different languages , and the print is miniscule . But the diagrams are universal!
The home is in the Eastwood neighborhood of Houston . installer

Kill Point Over Door

aaHere’s what this flowing viny wallpaper pattern looks like in this dining room in the Garden Oaks / Oak Forest neighborhood of Houston . The bottom 1/3 of the wall is block paneling / wainscoting , so the wallpaper on just the area above is not overwhelming .
A kill point is the place in a room where your last strip of wallpaper meets up with the first strip you hung . this virtually always results in a pattern mis-match . So we try to hide that in an inconspicuous place, such as in a corner behind a door .
In this room, all of the corners are very visible . A mismatched corner of 7′ high would be very noticeable .

So in this room, I was able to cleverly disguise the mis-match in a much shorter area, over a door . This is only 6″ high . Here my first strip is on the left, and my last strip is on the right, with two short strips needed to bridge that gap .

Here the strip on the right has been put into place.

Here’s the piece that will butt up against the strip on the left. Eeek! It’s 1/2″ too narrow to cover the gap. Also, as you can see, there is an obvious pattern mis-match at that seam on the right.

look at this tree branch . I’m going to use that to my advantage.

Here I’ve taken another piece and have matched the pattern on the right side. Note that it’s not matching on th left.

Here I am, back to that strip we saw a few photos ago, that will match with the strip on the left. Remember tha tree branch I pointed out? Here I’ve trimmed the wallpaper vertically along that tree branch .

Here I’m putting it into place, butting it up against the strip on the left, and overlapping the strip on the right. But that’s going to leave a vertical ridge under this strip, where the strip underneath it ends on the left.

But you won’t notice that overlap if it runs under a design motif . Here I’m using a pencil to trace the outline of that tree branch, bringing it in so that the tree branch will overlap just 1/8″ – 1/4″ over the strip on the right.
Note that since the surface of this paper is vinyl , and wallpaper paste doesn’t always adhere well to slick plastic , I’ve used a special border paste or vinyl over vinyl or seam repair adhesive just on this small 1/8″ overlapped area .

Strip on the right trimmed to conform to the curves of the tree branch.

Tree branch piece being put into place.

Tree branch strip trimmed and finished.

SDone and viewed from below. OK, so the pattern doesn’t match 100% perfectly the way the designer intended. Some of the motifs are closer together than they “should” be. From here, who the heck is going to notice?! This looks pretty darned good – and it looks way better than having a 7′ long mis-match in a very visible corner .

The pattern is called Twining and is by Graham & Brown . It has a very light texture , and also a slight
metallic sheen on the branches . It’s a non-woven / paste the wall material , and will strip off the wall easily and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate . I like their papers a lot .
You can purchase G&B from Dorota at the Sherwin-Williams in the Rice Village . Call first, as hours vary. (713) 529-6515 .
Here’s another cool thing … Go back to that first photo. Since I started hanging paper by centering the pattern between the two windows on the wall to the right (not visible in the photo), by the time I worked my way around to the wall between the windows you see in front of you, the pattern was not going to be centered in between the windows. I thought it would look better if it was balanced symmetrically. So I positioned the dominant part of the tree branches in between the windows. And then I used the same overlap-and-disguise trick over the window on the right.

Outsmarting Bull Nosed / Rounded Edges / Arch

Looks nice, huh?

But these rounded edges , especially arches , have been a thorn in the side of wallpaper installer s since they became popular more than 10 years ago. Hanging paper on them and trimming neatly at the right point is difficult. Because the paper is hanging over the edge blocking your view of where you need to trim . A level or laser level don’t always work because the home’s framing isn’t always perfectly plumb . Metal straightedges / trim guides are useful, but can slip and mess up your cut. The arches present their own challenges because a straight edge won’t line up with them .

A colleague in the Wallcovering Installers Association ( WIA ) invented this gadget , which is a huge help. This is a 1.5″ section cut off from the 10′ length of bull nose corner bead used in the drywall construction of these edges. Then you cut notches in it at the point on the corner where you want to trim your wallpaper .

Some installers place a trimmer blade in the notch and slide the gadget along the edge, trimming as they go. I find that the thing wobbles too much for an accurate trim, plus it’s difficult to hold the blade while you’re sliding the thing down the wall. So I put a pencil point into the notch and draw a line along where I want to trim. Then I can use a straightedge and trimming blade , or a scissors, to cut along the line. Makes a nice, even, straight cut! Note that I like to wrap it about 1/3 of the way around the rounded edge.

OK, so you’ve seen how I trimmed along the edge to the right. Now here’s another trick that I’m going to use on the edge to the left, as seen in the photo. The wallpaper strip is 20.5″ wide. But I trimmed it vertically so that the piece over the arch is 10″ wide. That correlates to the point where I want to trim the strip that will land on the rounded edge going down the wall.
Note that I have not completely trimmed the part under the arch on the left side, because I want to be sure the cut edge lines up with that on the next strip I’m going to hang.
The blue plastic tape is there to keep paste off the wall paint . It will be removed after the piece is trimmed to fit.

Now here I’ve placed the remaining 10.5″ wide left section of the strip of wallpaper. You can see how it’s falling perfectly along the bull-nosed edge – saving me from having to use a blade or straightedge or gadget.
Note that this works only if the edge is perfectly plumb , and that the piece above the arch is also perfectly plumb, and my new strip is hanging perfectly plumb. This paper is a non-woven material, and is somewhat stiff and unbending , so not really amenable to twisting or tweaking into place. Plus, you want to keep that left edge straight, because your next / subsequent strip will need to butt up against it. Trust me, I did a lot of measuring and shooting the laser level before I pasted or hung any paper!
Now that it’s in place, I can go back and trim that remaining bit under the arch, making sure that it meets up in the corner with the edge of this piece .

Here’s another shot of it finished.

Closer up.

This tree branch foliage pattern is called Twining and is by Graham & Brown . I like most everything they make. The non-woven substrate is designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece , with no damage to the wall , when it’s time to redecorate .
This home is in the Oak Forest / Garden Oaks / Heights neigborhood of Houston .

Subtle Colors , Gentle Movement in Dining Room

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 .

Geometric on Tricky Outside Corner

OK, never mind the ’80’s-era toilet paper holder that’s recessed into the wall here and is not removable – which presents a challenge all its own. My issue is adding the next strip of wallpaper to the left, turning the corner, and keeping the pattern matched as well as possible in both the inside corner and around the outside corner.
Usually, when turning inside corners, you wrap the paper around the corner 1/8 of an inch, and then cut a new strip of paper, match the pattern, and then overlap it that 1/8″ . That helps eliminate issues like mis-matches or wrinkles due to crooked corners or uneven / bowed / out-of-plumb walls . (no walls are ever perfect )
But in this case, we also have an outside corner to wrap. Even though it’s only about 2″ wide, that edge can cause the pattern to go off-plumb , or to create wrinkles in the wallpaper .
Going against most rules of wallpapering , I’ve decided to wrap the next strip around this 2″ wide wall and then onto the wider wall to the left .

Here I am, starting to position that next strip. I’m not going to try to wrap a full 27″ wide strip around this turn. Instead, I’ve trimmed it vertically along a horizontal stripe , which makes this strip narrower and more easy to handle , and also will help in placement of the next strip.

Now I’m pushing it into place into that corner. Note how the paper is wrinkling, both on the wide wall, and as it comes around the 2″ wall.

Another shot of the placement and wrinkles .

Using my plastic squeegee smoother to press the paper tightly into the inside corner. Note that, since the corner isn’t perfectly straight or plumb, there were a few areas where I couldn’t press the paper tightly into the wall, but had to leave a bit of a gap or air bubble, in order for the left edge to wrap around the turn.
The plastic smoother can also be used to gently push out wrinkles on the larger body of the strip of paper to the right. Don’t press too hard , nor overwork , because you don’t want to stretch the paper – that will cause more wrinkles.

The plastic smoother took care of the inside corner. Here I’m using my damp microfiber cloth to tightly press the paper around this outside corner .

OK. Paper’s wrapped tightly around this corner – but, because the corner isn’t straight , we’ve got wrinkles and warps .

Sometimes, you need to take a scissors to make relief cuts to help ease the paper around the corner . Try to make your cuts along an element of the design , to make the slit less noticeable.

here is that little narrow bit, finally wrapped around the outside corner. Now we need to add the next strip to the left of this. Note that this narrow strip isn’t straight nor plumb nor equidistant from the corner that we just turned. Nor is it equidistant from the next corner we have to deal with, which is to the left (not pictured).
Since we want the wallpaper strips to match in the corners, it’s important that the wallpaper pattern fall in the corner to the left at the same point from ceiling to floor. Complicated to explain.

So I’m taking a fresh strip of wallpaper , made sure the pattern matches correctly , and have trimmed it vertically along the tan stripe . Now placing it along this wrapped edge.
Because I’m overlapping instead of butting , I’m able to pull the new strip to the right or left, to keep it equidistant from the right outside corner . Or, from the inside corner to the left.
Actually, I don’t care much about the right side. The eye won’t notice if the new strip isn’t perfectly plumb . Nor will it notice if the pattern match isn’t 100% perfect . But it will notice if the pattern doesn’t match perfectly in the inside corner to the left.
So I’m pulling and manipulating and overlapping the strip a bit, so that the left edge of it is exactly 10-3/4″ from the left edge. This ensures that the pattern motifs fall all at the same point into that corner on the left.
Do I can cut my next strip, trim it vertically so the design matches with that in the corner, and get a perfect pattern match in the corner. Kinda difficult to explain, but I hope you can follow what I’m describing.

Note that this overlap is causing a bit of a ridge under the paper . Hard to see here, but when the paper dries and shrinks tight against the wall, it will be a little more obvious. But I’d rather have a ridge on the right, than a pattern mis-match in the corner to the left.
Oh, and never mind that little pattern mis-match to the right … that’s the paper wrapped around the corner, so you’re looking at different dimensions, not a pattern mis-match.

Here is that strip finished. The vertical strips isn’t perfectly plumb, but no one can tell that.
ut the pattern is perfectly straight in the inside corner to the left . So when I take my subsequent strip and trim it vertically to remove the right edge by approximately 10-3/4″ , the pattern should match perfectly in this inside corner. (It did!)

This “sort of” Greek key trellis geometric design is by Thibaut , one of my favorite brands. It was on a triditional paper substrate , and was hung via the paste the paper method .
It was purchased from my favortite source for wallpaper in Houston , Dorota Hartwig at the Sherwin-Williams in the Rice Village , who has more selection books than anywhere else in the city – and knows what’s in every one of them! Call before heading over (713) 529-6515 .
The home is in the Champions Forest area of northwest Houston.

Some Non-Woven Wallpapers Crease Easily

This is the bottom of the strip , where it meets the wainscoting . It needs to be pushed into the right-angle between the wall and the molding, so the excess can be trimmed off.
No matter how gently I push, or what tool I use, or how carefully I approach this, some papers buckle and fold and crease as they are bent backwards into the corner .

The wallpapers that do this are typically the thicker and ” puffy ” non-woven / paste the wall materials. It happens in just about every right-angle corner. Luckily these areas are usually not in the line of sight, so not very noticeable.
Note that many non-wovens are thinner and more flexible , and do not present this behavior.

Tucking Wallpaper Behind Pedestal Sink

Pedestal sinks (and toilets ) are tricky to hang wallpaper around and behind .  Over-working or manipulating the paper to fit and then trim around curves like this can cause tears , creases , or burnishing , among other issues .  Also, if there’s a cut edge along the top of the sink / vanity , if water splashes , it can be wicked up by that cut edge , sucked up into the wallpaper, which can cause curling at the seams and / or delaminating of the paper .  So , instead of being trimmed / cut along the top, best if the wallpaper can go behind the sink / backsplash.

Here’s the 1/4″ or so gap that I’m going to work the wallpaper into.

 Rather than trying to wrestle a 9′ strip of 27″ wide wallpaper down the wall and around this sink , it made sense to cut the strip horizontally at a point just below the top of the sink . I’ll piece the bottom section in shortly.

Sometimes, pedestal sinks are adhered to the wall with caulk , and cannot be moved.  But today I got lucky.  I was able to go under the sink and loosen the bolts , one on either side, ( see photo ) holding it to the wall .  This is not easy – you’ve got to have small hands , good eyes , good light ,  a plumber’s wrench , a box wrench , or a pliers – whatever works!  And not undo too much, because you don’t want to dislodge the  system ( toggle bolt ) that’s holding the bolt in place.
After all that, loosening this bolt gave me about a whole ¼”  area of play .   Still, I was able to carefully and slowly work the wallpaper behind and around the sink , without significant creasing or damage .  See second photo .

The pattern is called Cornflower and is by Rifle Paper , a brand by York , one of my favorite manufacturers. Rifle Paper is usually a user-friendly non-woven material , also called paste-the-wall …. although can sometimes surprise you with traditional paper wallpaper instead of N-W .