Using Heat To Bend Vinyl

I will be wrapping a stiff , thick , embossed textured vinyl wallpaper around the inside of this window return . This 90* angle is called an outside corner . This is tricky enough.
But the real feat will be wrapping the material around that bend , and getting it to adhere to that little lip on the bottom next to the wainscoting – which is only about 1/4″ deep . That doesn’t give much for the paper to grab hold of, especially since it is stiff and will want to retain it’s flat position .

Heat gun to the rescue! Heat will cause the vinyl to soften and allow it to bend . This is my test piece. I’m experimenting with how much heat is needed and the delicate balance between bending and melting or burning .
Also how much time is required for the vinyl to cool and how well it will retain its new shape , and how firmly it will adhere to that little narrow 1/4″ lip .

Because I can’t safely put my hands in front of the heat gun, and my plastic smoother tool would not hold up, I use this ” Euni Plate ” of stainless steel , which was invented and manufactured and sold by a colleague of mine in the Wallcovering Installers Association WIA .

Here’s another view. The plate has angles and rolled edges for various uses. The damp cloth is to quickly cool the vinyl, in hopes to keep it in the bent shape .

Another trick is to use a straightedge and razor blade to gently and lightly score the vinyl along the outside of the corner fold , to break the surface a little and allow it to bend . You’ve got to be careful, because cut too deeply and you’ll end up with a sliced edge that’s unattractive and also may delaminate ( come apart ).

Finished – with nice tightly wrapped edges that are staying in place .
wallcovering installer houston installation

Wrapping Wallpaper Around an Unstable Corner

I’m not sure what’s going on in this corner over a shower. But it looks like maybe some foundation movement has caused shifting in the corner, and the painters have used caulk to bridge a gap.
When you hang wallpaper, you don’t wrap a full sheet around an inside corner. You wrap about 1/16″ or 1/8″ around the corner, and then cut the strip in two vertically, and overlap the new cut piece on top of that 1/8″ wrap.
That allows for crooked or un-plumb corners, and lets you plumb up the next strip. It also allows a little “give” if the corner or drywall should move, and prevents the wallpaper from buckling or tearing in the corner.
But I was afraid that 1/8″ wouldn’t be wide enough to withstand movement, and we might end up with a gap in the corner.

So I wrapped the paper a little more, like 3/8″ around the corner. Here I’m placing the next strip so that it overlaps onto this wrapped 3/8″.
BTW, the gooky stuff at the bottom of the picture is the top of the shower tile, grout, and etc. It looks bad, but is actually nice and solid – and way above eye-level.

Done. No worries about gaps opening up.

’90’s Era Tissue Paper Wall Treatment

Here is an innovative wall treatment that was (sorta) popular a few years (decades) back. It involves taking tissue paper (such as wrapping paper), wetting it with diluted adhesive, wadding it up, and spreading it out on the wall. The ridges and folds create a unique textured effect.

The artist was quite talented, and actually laid these ridges of tissue texture in a pattern of oblong rings as you see in the photo above, spread out in horizontal bands around the room. I’m sorry I didn’t take a shot of the walls from a distance.

In order to hang wallpaper, I need to get the walls smooth. Unfortunately, this stuff does NOT want to come off the wall. So I am skim-floating over the mess, hoping to build up enough smoothing compound to bury these ridges (some of which are up to 1/4″ or more thick).

The challenge now is to get that thick layer of smoothing compound to dry overnight – in a small, enclosed powder room with poor air circulation.

Many of the globs of tissue paper swelled when they got wet with the smoothing compound, and created bubbles. In other situations – usually – when the compound is sanded smooth, these bubbles disappear. I hope that is the case tomorrow.

Stay tuned …

Tricky Outside Corner

One of the rules of wallpaper hanging is that you don’t wrap long strips around outside corners – especially when another strip will be butted up against it.

Drywall corners are never 100% plumb, and most have some sort of bow.

The 3/8″ – 1/2″ bit of paper presents additional challenges. Besides the fact that is is 100% likely that it will not wrap around the corner perfectly straight, the tension involved in wrapping that little bit of paper around the corner means that it will want to not lie down flat, and will have a hard time lying down tight to the wall.

The 1/2″ of wallpaper did NOT wrap around the corner in a straight line. The middle section bowed to the left, and the top and bottom edges were drawn closer to the corner bead, and were narrower than the center section.

The answers to this would be to

~let the new strip of wallpaper gap at the top and bottom sections of the wall

~cut the paper vertically along the edge, and position the sliced-off 38″ piece on the new surface, and butt the subsequent strip next to it. This would keep the pattern intact, but present the same challenge of trying to butt the straight edge of the new strip up against a wavy edge of that 3/8″ wide strip. It would also leave a visible cut edge, as well as cut edges that might come loose as people walk past and brush against the wall

~cut the paper vertcally along the edge, and then throw away the 3/8″ wide strip, and place the subsequent strip next to it. You would still have a cut edge showing, but you would not have the wavy 3/8″ strip. However, since 3/8″ of the design would have been cut off and discarded, there would be a very noticeable pattern mis-match.

Quandry!

But the wallpaper came to the rescue! This paper (see previous post for brand info) was incredibly malleable and manipulable. I was able to match the pattern perfectly, and hang the new strip and push / pull it into position so it met the wavy edge of the previous strip without any visible gaps of overlaps.

Wrapping around the next corner to the left was the next hurdle, because now we had both a left and a right outside corner that were not straight, causing the left edge of the new strip to be really warped.

Not going to get into a long explanation here, but, again, because the paper itself was very malleable, and because the subsequent strip (not shown) around the left corner was only 3 1/2 wide and also very manipulable, and because the non-woven wallpapers don’t shrink when they dry, this series of walls and turns and Van Gogh wallpaper looked great, with no wrinkles, gapping or white lines at the seams.

Washable, Kick-Proof Wallpaper

The builder of this contemporary styled home in the Montrose neighborhood of Houston included two large islands with seating areas – but neglected to address the issue of people scuffing the flat white paint with their shoes, or the pets splashing water and food onto the wall.

The homeowners needed something durable that would stand up to dings and that would be washable, too.

To the rescue is this heavy, solid-vinyl wallcovering in a sort of faux grasscloth design in a silver metallic color. It has a slight horizontal texture to it. The substrate is non-woven (not the cheapie paper backing that can be problematic in humid areas).

The paper went up beautifully on the flat backs of the island kick-area, and on the inside corners (required some vertical cuts to allow the paper to bend in the corner). But wrapping the thick, stiff material around the outside corners (see top photo) was not going well. The material simply was too thick to lie down tightly to the corners.

So I called in the Great Persuader – my trusty heat gun. With a little heat applied to both sides of the corners, and working it with my plastic smoothing tool, the vinyl conformed quickly and laid down neatly and tightly.

This is one of the few papers that is actually durable, resistant to dings, and washable. It will hold up well against human kicks and sloppy pets.

This vinyl wallpaper is by York Wall, 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.