Thoughts on wallpaper?
Since buying my house nearly two years ago, I have been working on various home improvement tasks. One of the first things I did when I moved in was to re-paint the walls in certain rooms because of ugly paint jobs from the past or visible damage that required me to fix cracks or other imperfections. The problem is that I don't really have an eye for color matching or designs so every room that I have painted, is just white. I want to make my home feel more cozy during the Michigan winters so I am thinking of getting some high-quality wallpaper to put up as opposed to painting. Especially because I did a complete remodel of my attic living space, replacing wood paneling with drywall, and I am soon approaching the beautification of the space.
So I am conflicted because it seems like there is many prevailing thoughts in the American design psyche:
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Fuck wallpaper - this seems to be due to the difficulty of removing wallpapers from 60s to 80s, where the designs were also not very good and quality bad. I removed wallpaper when I moved into my home, and it really wasn't that bad. I did it all in a day, but I can relate to hating the patterns that former owners put up.
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Accent wall only - put wallpaper just on a single wall in a room. Would still need to color match this to paint and kind of seems like the worst of both worlds. However, wallpaper can be expensive if you go the premium route so this could save money.
My wife is European, and while the attitudes towards wallpaper in various parts of the continent can vary, she is also very pro-wallpaper. She is thinking of doing whole room wallpapering.
So what are your thoughts, experiences, and opinions? If you have experience in America doing it, what vendors and advice do you have?
I don't know what kind of magical paper you had, but removing the wallpaper in three rooms of my house took my wife and I multiple days. It was absolutely miserable. We tried steamers and various solvents at different times.
That said, it isn't an actual problem. It is your house. You live there. Make it look and feel how you want using whatever materials you want.
If your wife wants to wallpaper the room, go for it. 10 or 20 years from now you or the next owner might have a crappy weekend because of it, but that isn't a real problem.
I’ve easily removed wallpaper before, but I live in the south where 60% humidity in the house during the summer feels comfortable because outside is like 100%
That may make a difference
A wall paper steamer can make short work of most wall paper.
Yeah, we used one. It worked decently in one room but was less than useless in two other rooms. I don't know if that was because of the backing material on the wall or the adhesives that were used.
I'm team Eggshell Paint, all the way. Easy to clean, easy to fix. A 10 year old can change the color of their room for $50 and a dream. Cover the walls in mounted art or photos after.
I can get behind an accent border, like this.
My childhood home was built in the 80s. When it came time to renovate the style in the late 90s, removing the wallpaper resulted in a lot of extra labor and one sizeable patch job on the drywall.
Yeah, all the painting that I did was a semi-gloss so while it is easy cleanable when the dog decides to shake after playing in mud, everything looks a bit shiny. I also did not paint the best and you can see every imperfection. I will have to look into the level of difficulty doing accent border. It might be a good option and nice blend, but again I don't really have the eye for getting good looking designs!
Also, don't discount the power of bright white walls to help manage the dark months of Michigan winter. I'd focus on artwork, adjustable-intensity lighting at all levels of the room, and adding color through accessories (pillows, throws, rugs) that you can change up as the season and your boredom level demands.
We removed wallpaper from one of the bedrooms in my childhood home -- wallpaper that was definitely not remotely as old as the 60s to 80s... it was from the 90s at the oldest, and it was an absolute ordeal that took at least a week of full-time work from multiple people (though admittedly all family members rather than professionals). I think you are underselling how bad removal can be.
Aesthetically, wallpapering all four walls often doesn't fit my sensibilities, but there's so much variance there based on personal taste that it's harder to weigh in there.
I’m not great with aesthetics, so I can’t comment on that. From a building science perspective, though, do note that many wallpapers (or adhesives) are vapour barriers: if your house is insulated and was designed to dry to the interior, you could wind up causing mold growth (on exterior walls especially).
Not that that should dissuade you from putting up wallpaper, but just something to keep in mind. There are plenty of vapour permeable wallpapers on the market (I think) and you might not even have this problem (no idea what your climate or building’s construction looks like).
I am of the opinion that wallpaper usually looks terrible. But it doesn't have to be! I've seen examples of wallpaper being used that make the room look better than it otherwise could be - and by a huge margin, no less!
The thing that seperates good wallpapering from bad wallpapering is that good wallpapering matches the rest of the room, including the items that are put in them. If you're going with a floral print, which is my personal favorite wallpaper design, you need to make sure that you have a lot of other floral motifs in the room around it, weather they are actual plants or not. The furniture should be natural tones.
Another thing that I think can look good is using partial wallpaper. Use some very ornate wallpaper patterns and don't fill the whole wall; just use a section. There's specific kinds for this but I don't know what they are called.
Attitudes towards wallpaper and other decoration aesthetics will change with times. I know that dark paint was popular years ago before people realized it was a pain to paint over it. And pretty sure a few years ago the trend was "rustic", worn-looking floorboards. So my stance is to not put too much stock in trends, and go for what you like.
That said, I feel like whether the wallpaper will be good or not will depend on the type of pattern. Some are very "loud" and can make it hard to hang up any wall decorations, so keep that in mind if you have a lot of photos or art to hang.
For solid color walls, the one thing I will suggest: a neutral, warm color like a cream or pale yellow would be better than pure white. White walls just drive me crazy, they feel so cold and sterile and blank, like they're incomplete. A warm neutral still goes with a majority of furniture the way white does, while feeling... Well, warmer.
Modern wallpaper is easy to put up and easy to remove. In our previous home, we did the accent wall thing, and it worked really well. It was a blue bitch pattern, and we matched the rest of the walls to the background color of the wallpaper. The opposite wall was for to ceiling bookshelves, and we used some birch accent pieces on the shelves as well. It turned out really nice.
Um... I hope that's a typo, though now I'm morbidly curious what that would look like!
Sorry, it was a blue with birch like the tree.
We redid a very utilitarian utility room (all MDF walls) over the course of a week. 1/2" drywall, totally amateur mudding, press-and-lock vinyl flooring over sealed concrete, and peel-and-stick wallpaper to cover the walls. Results.
The cheap wallpaper hid a multitude of bulges, imperfectly square walls, etc. without the fight to apply and sand multiple coats of primer. It's bright, waterproof, wipeable (we've both got messy hobbies), and the biggest issue we had was its tendency to stretch during application. That actually worked to our advantage in lining up the seams and the subtle pattern. While it's technically removable, it would probably take some drywall paper and mudding with it.
I'm Team Wallpaper 100% for areas where it's a vast improvement over the original wall condition, in a space whose walls you're not staring at all the time.
Huge fan of wallpaper, closing on my first house this weekend and we have already repainted the entire place (req of the loan), and are planning to go crazy on patterns throughout the place.
First, congrats!! But second, are you saying that a requirement of your mortgage loan was to repaint the walls? Why is that a thing (or did I just misunderstand)?
Yes. I was able to snag this excellent and beautiful property under the USDA Rural Development (Single Family Guaranteed) government loan program, 0% down payment, and closing costs can be rolled into the loan itself. Most of America is considered rural, even twenty minutes outside of major cities may be considered as such. Interest rates are just at, or below, conventional rates as well.
As with FHA loans, they have to be appraised for their value, and to be "of value" requires them to follow HUD housing guidelines for livability. One of the requirements is that for any property built before 1978, must not have any peeling, cracked, or chipped paint as they likely had lead in them prior to that date and its considered a health hazard primarily for children and animals (and everyone else, but thats secondary) to be exposed.
Considering the primary structure of the house was built in 1907, we had to have some sections that had cracked on the entire house (certainly built much later) due to decades of minor wear and tear, and usually that falls to the buyer (but, not always). I was approved to hire someone, or personally scrape the property, seal, and paint, for the USDA to insure the funds for the lender to disperse. I chose to save the money and do it all myself.
Speaking of, we just received the final approval from the USDA and the Appraiser just an hour or two ago, and we are now secure to close! We also had a few cracked windows that had to be replaced (another HUD req), but we had the seller agree to handle those as well as a few other very small things in exchange that we would take the risk and handle the sealing and paint.
Thank you for the detailed explanation, I'm not from the US, so haven't heard of this before.
I hope you enjoy the many more fun projects on your (soon to be) new home!
Ooh, a wallpaper thread where I can complain...
My first house had 12 different types of wallpaper across ~7 different areas (2bed 2bath). It was built in '89 so it wasn't even that old. But it was insanity.
I tried to remove some of the wallpaper, but the drywall paper was coming off with it. I ended up just painting over it, and it turned out okay in about 95% of the covered walls. This was with white paint, too.
After that experience, I don't think I could ever put up wallpaper.
Huh... That makes me wonder if it might be easier to paint over wallpapers than... Well, paint.
Ehhh, probably not. But not impossible either way.
I think most primer is pretty good these days, to the point you can coat most dark colors once and then you're good with a single coat of whatever you like.
Granted, I am not a professional by any means, just a guy who hates wallpaper and painted over it.
Depending on the pattern, wallpapers reflect whatever current trend and owners taste of that year. Because of that, they are subjected to age. I'm a firm believer that there's no such things as 'timeless design' and that all design and art age and change over time.
If you're planning to live in your space long term, then do what speaks to you and your wife. My only suggestion is not to put wallpaper where there is a lot of humidity like a full bathroom (half bathroom is probably ok). And if you are hestitant, closets are a great space to practice home DIY skills.
I am specifically pro wallpaper, even though my home doesn't have it right now. I wanted it to but there are too many variables when we were building, so it'll be a later project.
Wallpaper usually makes rooms feel more high end, I think, and there are so many options that I find it a lot more fun to choose than paint.
When we moved into our current house, we hired a designer for about $900 to help us develop a color scheme for the house. My wife and I each tagged things we liked in Houzz (interior design app) and sent them to her. She gave us a couple of pallets to chooses from and also recommended some rugs and other accents.
I still think it was worth every penny because we could have spent years kicking colors and still not been sure. We're about 7 years in and still going strong on the original scheme.
That said, if you don't have the budget, just browsing photos on Houzz (use the Home Design Ideas part of the site) might give you some ideas.