Before. Good colors. But nothing inspiring. Done. Boy, this paper really visually pushed the walls away and made the room look larger ! Easy on the eye tone-on-tone pattern , lighter colors , and a teeny bit of gold sparkle .
Note the 5/8″ high strip of wallpaper under the medicine cabinet on the left.
Because those faucet handles sit up so high above the backsplash , it’s likely that when people reach for the handles, water will get splashed onto the wallpaper . To prevent splashed water from wicking up under the wallpaper – which could cause the paper to expand and curl away from the wall – I ran a bead of clear siliconized caulk along the top of the backsplash . The color is skewed in this shot, but you get an idea of the tropical foliage and pattern scale . Toile is a French word for a sort of pen and ink drawing in one color on a background that may be colored or may not be.Close-up , showing a truer color . Note the palm trees and the monkey . This material has a woven -look textured surface , and it mimics fabric . I almost felt like I was install ing linen , instead of wallpaper . The brand is Rasch , a company out of Germany . Their papers are consistently nice to work with. This one was unexpectedly thin and flexible . It’s textured vinyl on a non-woven substrate . The vinyl makes it durable and stain-resistant , and the NW makes it easy to remove later when you’re ready to redecorate . The seams are positively invisible. This powder room on the first floor just off the home office / study comes complete with a shower . Just for fun – one of the obstacles in this room was this rain shower head – sticking out right where I need to be on my ladder , and keeping me from reaching those walls . On top of that, the faucet handles also stuck out much further from the wall than most do. While priming the walls, as I was climbing down from the ladder , my clothing actually got entangled in the handles and – turned on the water ! Yes, I got a shower at work today ! The home is in the Woodland Heights neighborhood of Houston .
East wall beforeSame wall covered with soft tan, lightly textured wallcovering . This material is an embossed vinyl replicating the look of a woven grasscloth . The texture and color doesn’t overpower , but is just enough to give the feeling of warm and cozy . Plain paint can’t do that. West and north walls before. Finished – but the color washed out for some reason … it’s really a peaceful tan .Close-up of the woven textured look . Manufacturer is Thibaut . Random means that this material has no pattern match at the seams . Because no wallpaper is cut off in order to match the pattern , there is very little waste , and you often get an extra strip out of each roll / bolt of paper. Like most textured wallpapers , be they made of natural materials like grasscloth or sisal , or a faux like this of embossed vinyl , it’s suggested that you reverse hang every other strip – in other words, Strip #1 is hung right side up, and Strip #2 is hung upside down, then Strip #3 is right side up, etc. This helps minimize shading and paneling between strips , by ensuring that the same edge of wallpaper is hung against itself . Do a Search here to read previous posts and get a clearer idea of what I’m talking about! This home is in the Heights neighborhood of Houston . installer
Before. Primed and ready for wallpaper . Done. This image could be positioned so that the palm leaves push up from the floor , or, as in the photo , they hang down from the ceiling. This is a popular look right now, and very fitting to an accent / headboard wall in a bedroom . Done. The homeowner bought one mural from Russia before she and I consulted , so it would be difficult to get another. In addition, the mural images don’t continue from right to left, so you can’t place two murals next to each other and have palm leaves continue unbroken . The manufacturer’s picture on-line is misleading, too, because it’s been Photoshopped to look like it fills the whole wall with tropical fronds . As you can see, the actual mural is a lot narrower than the wall, plus shorter by about a foot and a half. The mural is placed slightly off-center on the wall , because the homeowner wanted it centered on the bed , which sits a little to the right of center . Plans are still incubating, but she’ll probably have wooden panels or trim placed on the wall flanking the mural as well as beneath it, to give a finished look. All in all, I think the room looks dreamy !Close-up .The material is vinyl and has a woven fabric – like texture . The mural came in four panels, each about 3′ wide by about 8.5′ high . Here I am laying them out so I can get measurements and to be sure they go up in the right sequence. There were a lot of these little black specks of a chalk – like substance on the back , and even some on one area of the front . Did I tell you this came from Russia ?! Sorry, no brand name, but this was thin and very flexible and pretty nice to work with . This is a popular design concept , and many companies are making similar patterns . Try RebelWalls.com , which is super quality and really good customer service, plus tons of designs and images to cover your walls .
This small floral print was fashionable when it went up, 30+ years ago. But now it’s dated, and also some stains and dirt are showing. Time for an update!Old paper has been stripped off, the walls have been primed with my favorite Roman Pro 977 Ultra Prime, and ready for wallpaper. Done! An accent of grasscloth was used on one wall. I love the way the greens match, and everything coordinates with the paneling / wainscoting. Usually I place the pattern so a prominent design motif sits at the ceiling line. But in a room with wainscoting or chair rail, that horizontal mid point in the wall is more visible. So I plotted to have the bottom of the dark green, most visible flower land just above the top of the chair rail. It looks like it’s growing from the wood! The pattern also just happened to land nicely at the ceiling line, with no major design elements getting cut in half. The material has woven fabric look to it – but that’s just the printing. It’s actually a very flat paper. It was very thin, and reminded me of papers from decades ago. It hugs the wall very tightly. I liked it a lot. Exclusive WallcoveringsThe grasscloth accent wall. All four strips were reverse-hung, and hung in the sequence they came off the bolt. Yet you see a color difference (called paneling or shading ) between some strips. This is quite typical of natural products like grasscloth and sisal. Close up. Bad photo … the color is actually an attractive green. The material is more of a thin balsa wood about 1/2″ wide, rather than traditional grass or reeds. I feared it would be difficult to cut through, but it turned out to work very nicely. But it would not have been good in a room with corners or intricate details to trim around.
The home is in League City, a southern suburb of Houston.
The homeowner waited 13 years to do away with the classic damask wallpaper in the powder room of their home in the West University neighborhood of Houston. That’s what happens to your plans when you buy a home and get sidetracked by kids, career, community, yada.
There was nothing wrong with the original gold damask pattern, but it was dark and it didn’t suit the homeowners’ taste. They were originally looking at grasscloth – but, luckily, listened to my many reasons to avoid that material (see page link at right).
They took my suggestion and went with this textured vinyl faux woven grasscloth by Thibaut called Bankun Raffia.
This material has the texture and depth of color that people are loving these days, but is (mostly) free of the color variations and fragility of real grasscloth.
Bankun Raffia is a commercial-grade material, so it is resistant to dings, splashed water, stains, fingerprints, and little boys with bad aim. 🙂
It’s harder to work with than regular wallcoverings, because it is thick and stiff and hard to cut and hard to make turn corners or work into tight spaces.
The finished look is tailored and serene, and a lot brighter. In the photo with my finger, you can see the textured surface and fauxed color application.
This wallpaper pattern is by Thibaut Designs, and 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.
Textured wallcoverings are tempting to dogs and cats, and this couple’s King Charles spaniel puppy had some fun with a couple of areas of their kitchen wallpaper. It is an embossed vinyl on a paper backing, made to mimic a woven grasscloth.
An applique a half inch higher than the tear, and the full width of the wall, was the least noticeable way to repair this. The thickness of the material made it more difficult to disguise the patch, but the finished job looked very good.
The third photo shows “border paste” – also called vinyl over vinyl (VOV) – which was called for in this instance. Vinyl wallcovering is somewhat slick, and most adhesives won’t stick to it. So you need this special formula.
In addition, because the patch was exhibiting curl at the top and side edges, and because I wanted something with quick tack, I used clear caulk (not pictured) along all the edges. This sets up quickly, and holds very tightly, even on glossy surfaces.
This new home in the Briarpark neighborhood of west Houston is spacious and light, with floor-to-ceiling windows, white walls and neutral-colored floors and furnishings.
Like many young families, the homeowners were looking for texture, rather than pattern, to warm up their home bar area. Layne Ogden, of Layne Torsch Interiors, found them this 2-tone, basket-weave sort of grasscloth pattern by Thibaut.
Seams are a little less noticeable on this woven grasscloth, but buyers should still be aware that ANY “natural” product presents the possibility of mis-matched seams, shading and paneling, as well as being easily stained, or even targeted by cats or dogs who want something to dig into.
To help reduce the instances of paneling, Thibaut has labeled their bolts in the order they came off the manufacturing line. The idea is that if you place strips that were dyed at the same time next to one another, it will minimize any possible color differences as you move through the printing batch numbers.
The only weird thing for today’s project is … how did it happen that there are TWO bolts numbered #12? ?? AND … what’s up with that one bolt that has no label or wrapper of its own?
The two bolts of #12 I can deal with. But the unwrapped bolt I am afraid to work with. It is undoubtedly a return from gawd-knows-whom-or-when, and it’s impossible to know what run or batch it’s in.
So I’m ahopin’ that I will be able to pull enough tricks out of my hat to paper the room without having to use this bolt.
This large bedroom in an addition to a 1934 home in the West U neighborhood of Houston wasn’t actually a dormitory, but it was home to two boys throughout their childhood. Now that the boys are grown and gone, the homeowner wants to make this into a spare bedroom that feels snug, yet chic.
She’s going for something of the Farmhouse Modern look. Instead of shiplapped wood on the ceiling, she chose wallpaper that mimics the look – and is much more affordable.
This wallpaper is by York, in their Joanna Gaines “Magnolia” line. It is a pre-pasted light non-woven material in their SureStrip line, and is designed to strip off the wall easily and in one piece when it’s time to redecorate. I like this product a lot. And today I appreciated its extra strength, because I did have to reposition the first two strips quite a bit.
I’m running the strips across the ceiling the short way, from right to left (see top photo). This means that the brown stripes that represent the gaps between the wood planks will run parallel to the long wall you see on the right of the photo.
Theoretically, I should have been able to line the paper up along that far wall. The problem became quickly apparent, though – that the two walls (all four walls, in fact) were woefully out of square with one another. That meant that if the paper was hung parallel to the far wall, the brown line would go off-track as it moved across the long wall on the right.
My first strip, hung parallel to the far wall, was so out of wack with the wall on the right, that I knew that if I continued, that brown line would march very off-parallel away from the wall on the right. That is a 34′ long wall, and very visible when you are standing in the room, so it was important to keep the brown line as parallel as possible. This would have been easy if my strips had been running parallel to the wall. But since I was running the paper in the other direction across the ceiling (perpendicular to the long wall), it was very difficult.
I pulled the first strip off the wall, repasted it lightly to keep the paste activated, put it in a plastic trash bag to keep it damp, and took a new tack.
The distance between the “boards” was 6″. I wanted the first row of boards to look as wide as the other boards, but I needed some play in order to accommodate irregularities in the wall on the right, as well as potential tracking off-kilter. So I decided to have the brown line fall 5″ away from the long wall. That left this row of “boards” only an inch narrower than they should have been, which would not be very noticeable to the eye.
I took a ruler and measured 5″ out from the long wall on the right. Then I took a straightedge and drew a line connecting the marks, to give me a guide line that was parallel to the long wall. Because the long wall was not nearly straight, this line was not exactly 5″ from the wall in every spot. But it was good enough to serve as a guideline for where I wanted my brown line to fall.
Then I went and got that first strip of paper that had been cooling its heels in the plastic bag, along with Strip No. 2, and got them onto the wall. I used my pencil line as a guide to position that brown line. Since you can’t get a very accurate placement with just one 20.5″ wide strip of wallpaper, having the two strips together helped to ensure that the brown line was running along the pencil line. Still, I had to remove and reposition both strips several times, until I got them on my target.
All this is hard enough when you’re working on a wall, but on a ceiling, without the help of gravity holding your paper in place and keeping it free of twists and wrinkles, plus that same gravity trying to pull the paper down around your head, it was quite the feat.
But once I got those two initial strips properly positioned and smoothed, the subsequent strips followed nicely, and the brown line marched along the pencil line beautifully.
In the third photo, you’ll notice that only half the ceiling is done. This is because the homeowner had a little confusion between double and single rolls, and how this particular vendor describes its product, and consequently ended up ordering only half as much as was needed. 😦 I will have to come back and finish later. 😦
I don’t like stopping in the middle of a wall, because wallpaper goes up better when you put a wet strip next to a wet strip, and they can be manipulated together at the seams. But this is a large room, and I wanted to get as much done as possible, to shorten the time needed when I come back later to finish. The vendor promises that they will supply the same run number.
The next post on this room will show the finished ceiling, as well as a thin, tailored, textured woven fiber in chocolate brown that is going on the walls.
As a side note, I have worked in this home for this lovely family several times years ago. The last time I was here, their daughter was an infant. I asked how she was doing today, and was told that, “She’s out running errands, driving Mom’s car.” !!
For this accent / feature wall of Grandma’s bedroom in a very contemporary new home in the West U. area of Houston, the homeowner wanted something fun but not too edgy (Grandma’s gonna sleep in there, after all! 🙂 ). Plus she wanted to pull in colors from other rooms, particularly navy blue, as well as coordinate with the tufted headboard (grey) and upholstered bench (navy). And a little Asian flavor wouldn’t hurt.
Here’s a pattern that fills the bill! The hatch design is reminiscent of a woven bamboo mat. The navy background coordinates with the bench, as well as fabrics in other rooms of the house, and the grey and silver accents work perfectly with the tufted headboard. The design is contemporary, but not overwhelmingly so. Its surface is vinyl, but it has a velvet-like feel, and I believe it will help absorb sound, too.
The homeowner took my recommendation and visited Dorota (read below), who helped her track down this perfect fit!
The material is non-woven, and I hung it using the paste-the-wall technique. The backing and edges of this dark paper were white, so I ran a chalk pastel crayon along them to disguise the light color.
This wallpaper pattern is by Designer Wallpapers, and 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.
Most of the furniture and accessories are from High Fashion Home near downtown Houston.
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