Brightened Bathroom

Original vinyl wallpaper in this bathroom was peeling badly, due to humidity and poor ventilation. The design was dated, too. And, gee – borders are pretty much a thing of the past. Time for an update.

Old paper has been stripped off, wall has been primed. Ready for the new stuff!

What a pretty and cheery pattern! The window looks out to a lush and green backyard, and this foliage-themed wallpaper helps pull the feeling inside.

I was losing natural daylight, so the pretty blue and lime tones are not showing up well.

The colors are a little more true here. This almost looks like a water color painting!

A Street Prints is the manufacturer. This is non-woven material, also called paste-the-wall. It went up very nicely. And, because there is no vinyl and because the substrate has a higher polyester content and less paper, this should hold up much better in the humid bathroom. Nonetheless, I did lecture the homeowner to run the exhaust fan and to keep the bathroom door open for air circulation.

The home is in the League City subdivision south of Houston.

Don’t Use Paper-Backed Solid Vinyl Wallpaper in a Bathroom

You are looking at seams in a bathroom that are curling and opening up. This is due to a combination of things.

1, Probably the walls were not prepped properly. Wallpaper should be hung over smooth walls primed with a product designed to be used under wallpaper. Not paint primer and not bare Sheetrock and not glossy paint overspray around the woodwork.

2, Humidity is the great enemy of wallpaper. Especially in a small enclosed bathroom with poor ventilation. If your home has this environment, make sure to run the exhaust fan while showering, and leave the bathroom door open for ventilation, so the humid air can circulate out and fresh, dry air can venture in.

3, Manufacturers tout solid vinyl wallpaper as ” bathroom ” paper because splashed water will run off it. But this is misleading. What’s also going to happen is that humidity will find its way in between the wallpaper seams and then into the gritty manila-type paper backing. Once that backing absorbs moisture, it will expand. When that happens, it will push away from the surface, creating the curled seams you see here.

Taking it a step further, often this paper backing will actually delaminate from the decorative vinyl layer.

Tjhis is not a ” loose seam ” and cannot be glued back down. Your bet bet is to strip off all the wallpaper, properly prep the walls, and hang new paper.

Stay away from the low-end pre-pasted, paper-backed, solid-vinyl papers. A better option would be a thin acrylic-coated paper (not vinyl) or one of the newish non-woven (part polyester) papers.

DFor more information and details, read my page on the right https://wallpaperlady.wordpress.com/stay-away-from-pre-pasted-paper-backed-solid-vinyl-wallpapers/

A Very Pretty Heights House Renovation

New drywall. I draped strips of protective dropcloth paper over the top of the wainscoting, to protect from splatters from my primer.

Notice the “raised ink” and the hand-painted look.

Recent updates reflect respect for the original feel of this 1920 bungalow in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston. There will be a claw-foot tub, as well as a very cool authentic vintage pedestal sink that the homeowner found on the side of the road, discarded from another older bungalow just a few blocks away. !!

Vintage-look beaded board paneling was added, along with hexagonal floor tile, both in a warm, muddy green that compliments the greens in the wallpaper.

The homeowner has a stunningly beautiful garden, and sought a wallpaper pattern that would bring the feel of nature indoors.

The top photo shows the walls as the contractor left them, in what we call a “Level 4” condition. This is optimal for wallpaper installation. No texture for me to get rid of, and no paint or PVA-based primers under the wallpaper. All I had to do was roll on my wallpaper-specific primer, Romans Pro 977, Ultra Prime.

The wallpaper is called Garden Party and is by York, in the Waverly collection (yes, reviving classic designs from the 1990’s!), and in their SureStrip line – one of my favorite products. It is pre-pasted, goes up nicely, hugs tight and thin to the wall, and performs wonderfully over the years, even under (mildly) humid conditions – such as a bathroom in an old house with poor ventilation.

The interior designer for this job is Stacie Cokinos, of Cokinos Design. She works mostly on new builds and whole-house remodels, and mostly in the Heights / Garden Oaks neighborhoods.

RePaste and Disguise Split Wallpaper Seams

Several seams in this bathroom, as well as some whole sections of wallpaper, had come away from the wall.

Most likely, this was due to a combination of things … Number 1, extreme humidity from teenaged son taking showers with no ventilation and over several years. Number 2, possible improper wall prep before the wallpaper went up. Number 3, Unstable surface, which allowed layers inside the wall to delaminate and separate from each other.

Whatever the culprit, I had success in using wallpaper paste to re-adhere most of the loose areas back to the wall. We were still left with visible gaps at some of the seams, where the wallpaper had shrunk.

I used water-based craft paint to color these areas. I didn’t use the brushes … I just daubed my finger in the undiluted darker tan paint and swiped it over the gaps, pushing to be sure it reached to the wall. Then I wiped excess off the surface of the surrounding wallpaper with a damp rag.

I used water to dilute some of the blue and red paint, and then added that over the appropriate colored areas. I used the tiny brush to dot on bits of near-black paint, to correspond with the black printed areas on the wallpaper map.

From a distance, you could not see the touch-ups. Even better – you could not see the touch-ups even if very close.

20+ Year Old Paper – Still Perfect

I hung this paper in a master bathroom in Bellaire more than 20 years ago. It is still in perfect shape!

This is due partly to the good quality paper the homeowner chose (not low-end, pre-pasted, paper-backed, solid vinyl), to good ventilation removing humidity from the room, to good installation techniques, and to the great primer I used at that time – Oil Based KILZ Original. Unfortunately, EPA regulations forced changes to this primer, and wallpaper paste will no longer stick to it.

The homeowners are going to renovate and update the bathroom, so I was there taking measurements for the new room. When it comes time to remove this old paper, I know that it will strip off easily and cleanly, because of the installation and primer used when it was put up.

Paper-Backed Vinyl Is Not Good In A Bath

Digital Image

Oh, boy. I sure don’t like vinyl papers that are bonded to a paper backing. Here is a very visual reason why – Under humid conditions, they delaminate (surfaces separate) and curl.

This particular type of paper is about my absolute most detested, because of it’s propensity to curl. The material is typical of what was hung back in the ’70’s. Other issues factor in, like the type of primer used (or not used 😦 ), the paste used, type of paper backing, type of vinyl surface, age of home, ventilation in the room, and just how much steam is generated when the shower is used.

To be fair, this wallpaper had been up and looked good for a long, long time (possibly back to those ’70’s!). So maybe Father Time is just taking its toll.

And maybe Father Time has an ulterior motive … I mean, look at that paper! Isn’t it about time for a little update?!!