From Tired Tuscan Mural to Subtly Elegant Textured Damask

This “Tuscan View” hand-painted mural was well done, but the new homeowners didn’t love it. They wanted the family room of their 1970’s era ranch-style home to coordinate with the living room (which I papered and blogged about a few months ago – Search on words like “cork” and “damask” to see pics).

The new wallpaper is a silver cork product with a large white damask pattern printed on top. It is a cross between contemporary (silver) and traditional (damask), and adds glamor (silver) and elegance (damask) all at the same time.

I hung this for a family with young children in the Pasadena neighborhood of Houston. 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.

From Textured to Smooth Wall Surface

Many homes in Houston have textured walls. In new homes in the suburbs, the texture is often really heavy – the so-called “Tuscan” look.

The texture will look bad under the new paper, plus it interferes with good adhesion. So it needs to be smoothed out before the paper can go up.

I use the process called “skim-floating” or adding a “skim-coat.” You can Search here (upper right corner) to find posts explaining this process.

And don’t pay your painter or handyman to do it – they don’t understand what’s needed for wallpaper. I’m many times better! 🙂

Here are before and after pics of a powder room I smoothed and prepped in the Bellaire neighborhood.

That second photo is enlarged many times – the wall is actually much smoother than the picture makes it look.

Diamonds Brighten a Bellaire Bathroom

Originally, this home in the Bellaire neighborhood of Houston was rife with the “Tuscan” look, and this under-the-stairs powder room shows just that … The gold overlaid with a red glaze was a good look, but the new homeowners wanted a brighter, more modern look.

Just look at how the diamond pattern on a white background changed the room! The heavy darkness is gone, and the feeling is totally modern. The black and white scheme goes beautifully with the new black countertop and white sink.

One not-so-great thing is that somehow we got two different run numbers. Different run numbers were printed at different times, and can be slightly different in shade, so cannot be used on the same wall. Luckily, we had enough paper that I was able to plot out which bolts to use on which walls, and the room turned out looking great.

This paper is by A-Street Prints, which is made by Brewster, a good company. It is a non-woven product with a high fiberglass content that is designed to strip off the walls easily and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate. The material is dimensionally-stable and will not shrink as it dries.

It can be hung by the paste-the-wall method, but I preferred to paste the paper. In a bathroom with choppy areas, this ensures that paste will get to every surface, and it also makes the paper more pliable and malleable, which is essential in a room like this with crooked corners and a curved wall (not shown).

This wallpaper was bought from my favorite source for good quality, product knowledge, expert service, and competitive price – 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.

Brunschwig & Fils “Bird and Thistle” in a North East Houston Powder Room

The homeowner loved this paper, and had to have it somewhere in her family’s new home in Humble, in far northwest Houston. The powder room turned out to be the perfect spot!

Originally the room was faux-finished in a heavy and rough “Tuscan” texture painted a dark reddish brown color. This classic wallpaper pattern changes the whole look, bringing an air of elegance.

The paper has a toned-down silver metallic look, with soft seafoam colored tree trunks, foliage, and birds on it. The ceiling was painted a coordinating soft murky blue, and the wallpaper coordinated beautifully with the tile.

It was quite thin. I like thin papers. The seams were practically invisible, and the paper was somewhat twisty – Sometimes that is good, because you can manipulate a strip to fit slightly off-plumb areas. But sometimes it’s not good, because warps and wrinkles can develop. In the powder room, this was not a big deal, because I never had more than three strips next to one another. But in a larger room with more strips hanging sequentially, it could be a problem.

This design is called Bird & Thistle, and is by Brunschwig & Fils, a British company and a higher-end brand.

Lazy Drywall Contractor

These powder room walls were textured in a heavy “Tuscan” finish. The homeowner asked her contractor to smooth the walls, so they would look good under the new wallpaper. The guys did a good job in most areas. But, as you see here, they fell short in others.

First of all, it’s simple to remove a toilet paper holder. Why try to work around it, and get smoothing compound slopped all over it?

In the middle picture, this is a shot of the vanity backsplash. The smoothing compound falls short of the stone countertop. Since the wallpaper will end here, it needs a solid surface to grip ahold of. This gap between the smoothing compound and the stone will allow the wallpaper to gape open and curl away from the wall.

The third photo just shows careless work. Not horrible, but they could have done better.

In all these areas, and others, I was able to do touch ups, so when the wallpaper goes up tomorrow it will have a smooth, intact surface to adhere to.

The sad part is, the homeowner paid the contractors to do this work, but now is paying me to finish the job.

Heavily Textured Wall – Venetian Plaster

A few years ago, this wall finish was quite popular. There are different levels of thickness, but the general name for the style is Venetian Plaster. To me, this looks rustic and “Tuscan,” yet people were putting it in modern homes, and even Victorian styled homes. Today it’s out of style, and people are going back to wallpaper.

The walls will have to be smoothed again, before wallpaper can be applied. Because this particular example is especially thick, it will take a lot of smoothing compound and a lot of drying time.

The second photo shows the wall after I applied the smoothing compound. It had to dry overnight, with three fans set at ‘high’ blowing on it. In the third photo you see all the dust on the baseboard and floor, from sanding the wall smooth. This is way more than usual, because of the thickness of the original texture that I was covering up.

The last photo shows the wall after I sanded it and primed it. It’s now ready for wallpaper!

Venetian Plaster – Whoever Thought This Was A Good Idea?!

In the early 2000’s, someone got the idea to put Venetian plaster in American homes. The fad caught on, and soon people were forsaking wallpaper and covering their walls with the new trendy texture, which was supposed to look “rustic,” and “Tuscan.”

To me, unless you had a house that was designed from the ground up to look “Tuscan,” this wall finish never looked good in the typical American home. Even worse was when the finish was poorly executed. Please see the photos.

I’m glad that the pendulum has swung, and people are going back to wallpaper.

There are special prep steps that must be taken, so that the texture won’t show under the new paper, and so the paper can adhere to the surface (true Venetian plaster has a slick wax coating).