Reverse-Hang Wallpaper Strips for Uniform Color

Here I am trying to find and understand the pattern match on this very difficult to see faux reptile pattern.

All this is more confusing because the little box toward the left on the bottom of the manufacturer’s spec sheet says this is a drop / offset match. It is not – it’s a straight match .
The instructions also say it’s 64cm (25 in). That’s not true, either. It’s more like 12.5″
The pattern also repeats itself once horizontally across the strip.

Found the match!

Problem is, when I followed the manufacturer’s instructions and hung the material as a matched pattern, I got paneling . This means that the material is darker along the left edge than along the right. Therefor, when you place one strip next to another, you see an abrupt color change , as shown in the photo.
The pattern may match, but this color variation is pretty unattractive.

So I followed what’s pretty standard protocol for textured and natural materials (such as grasscloth , paperweaves , cork , etc. and even this vinyl .) I took that strip off the wall, repasted it, and hung it again – but this time upside down.
By doing this, you’re hanging the left side of one strip against the left side of another strip. Because it’s meeting up with itself, there is no or minimal color difference.
Hard to explain, and if I could figure out how to draw some arrows or diagrams …. well, I can’t, so you’ll just have to try to follow along.
Bottom line – you hang one strip right-side-up and the next strip upside-down . Keep track of which is the top on each of your wallpaper strips, and mark on the wall (in pencil) which direction each strip should be hung.

Made by Super Fresco Easy , called Crocodile . Really nice material, and affordable.

Working Around Shading in Cork Wallpaper

The homeowners originally sought grasscloth for this accent wall in the home office. But I talked them out of it, due to the unpleasant shading and color variation issues (click on the page to the right to read more). I showed them a sample of this white-washed cork wallpaper, and they were immediately smitten.

The previous time I hung this, the material was very homogeneous in color.

But this time, it was immediately evident that there was a darker band running down the left half of the roll, and a lighter band along the right side. Note that this is not considered a defect (even though it is obviously a problem stemming from the factory). It is considered part of the “inherent beauty of these natural materials.” Meaning, you can’t return it and expect to get your money back.

Cutting strips as they come off the roll and hanging them next to each other will result in abrupt color differences between strips – as you see in the top photo. One way to minimize that is to hang every other strip upside down, so you are then putting the dark side next to it’s dark counterpart on the previously hung strip.

In this case, because the darker areas were so dark and wide, this would have resulted in the wall having a striped look. Not what the homeowners were shooting for.

The wall was exactly 12′ wide, and the material is 3′ wide, so we needed four strips to cover the width of the wall.

We had three double-roll bolts. Each 24′ long bolt will give you two 9′ strips. Thus we needed two double rolls to cover this wall. That left us with one bolt in excess.

That turned out to be a good thing – having extra paper. The color shading was bad in one bolt, noticeable in another bolt, and the third bolt was pretty homogeneous in color.

I rejected the bolt with the worst shading. Thank goodness the client ordered a little extra paper! The bolt with the second-worst shading, I discovered that if I rolled it backwards, the shading was less severe in the inner portion.

So I took two strips off this bolt from the inside-out.

So now that gave me two strips from the first roll that were pretty homogenous. Plus two strips from the second bolt that were passable.

How to keep the color as uniform a possible across the 12′ wide wall?

II knew I wanted to place the two strips from the first, “best” bolt in the center of the wall. If I hung one right-side-up, and the next one up-side-down, keeping the darker area toward the center, the color differences would be less noticeable.

But I still had to cover 3′ width on either side of those two center strips.

One strip equaled 3′ width. So one 3′ wide strip on either side of those two center strips.

One plan, I contemplated cutting each of those the two 3′ (36″) wide strips from the second bolt into 18″ widths. Hang one right-side-up and the other upside-down. That would break up any color variations into less noticeable panels.

Only problem was, then there would be two 36″ wide chunks of material in the middle, flanked by two 18″ wide chunks on either side. I thought that would be too inconsistant, visually.

It would look better to keep all the widths the same, at 36.”

The two strips I had taken off that second double roll bolt had some shading issues, with the left side being darker than the right side. I reasoned that it would be less noticeable if the darker, shaded area, was toward the outer corners – sort of as if sunlight or furniture or window shutters were casting shadows.

So I plotted to use a full 36″ wide strip on either side of the center strips. I would position them so that the lighter side of each strip was toward the center – toward those two originally-placed strips. This meant placing one right-side-up and the other one upside-down.

Thus the darker edge of the strips would be situated toward the corners of the wall – a logical place for shadows and light to play tricks on the eye.

That’s what I ended up doing. And the finished wall does really look very homogeneous!

Yes, I am quite guilty of over-thinking way more than I should. But I think the client deserves the best look possible. And, to be honest, all this plotting and engineering is a big part of the fun of hanging wallpaper!