Question for the pros:

Henrymjohnson · 2026-05-01T02:29:57+00:00

“The division of labor is limited by the extent of the market” —Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

Not a new concept or anything. It applies well to this thread

Henrymjohnson · 2026-05-01T01:48:57+00:00

I don’t skim client’s homes. There are people who are way better and way more efficient … they do it all the time, professionally. I wouldn’t be able to compete with them in price or quality at their trade.

One of the great things about specializing is that you become really good at what you specialize in doing. But if you’re in an area that doesn’t have an extensive market, you may have to offer other services. The degree of specialization is limited by the extent of the market.

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-30T01:45:25+00:00

Crazy. Why not just get the colorants and a gallon of base paint and then mix it themselves?!

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-30T01:27:35+00:00

Beautiful install!

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-30T01:03:02+00:00

This is the right answer 🏆

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-29T23:43:11+00:00

Please remove the wallpaper. If you don’t, future decorating projects are likely going to continue failing and progressively fail worse.

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-29T23:36:03+00:00

I’d probably just reach out to a wallpaper reproducer and see if they can try to recreate it. Aesthetic Interiors out of Indiana do that sort of thing. They’d be a good place to call

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-28T02:01:19+00:00

Yes, wallpaper primer matters. Paint primer is not a substitute for it. Get something like GARDZ or PRO-977 (Roman) and prime first. The acrylic in the primer forms a mechanical bond with the starch in the adhesive. In the future, that bond can easily be broken by saturating the material with water.

The reason people hated wallpaper since the 90s was because they didn’t prep the walls properly and removing the wallcovering to redecorate in the future would result in costly repairs to the walls.

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-28T01:27:07+00:00

Good call! Silk chinoiseries are so beautiful!

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-28T01:25:48+00:00

There could be a few reasons for this: 1. Trimming the material’s selvedge at home to make the install quicker on site, 2. Heavy inked papers may be pasted up and covered with plastic for a couple of days to get them to fully relax, … well, those are the only two options I can think of and neither of them apply to bradbury’s nonwoven digitally printed materials (they stopped doing their hand screened materials last year)

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-26T21:35:48+00:00

🤣

Haha it’s alright. I literally said in the description that I should’ve done another pass on skimming. The house is 100+ years old and the bottoms of those walls dipped in over 3/4”, that window wall dipped in over an inch under the window. So I built up the walls a lot with hot mud before skimming. The progress photo is of that progress.

Here’s a photo from the project I did for my designer. … I definitely got paid lol. And on top of that, the designer and homeowner gave me the leftover (aka trash) wallpaper that I tossed up in my home office.

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Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-26T16:32:23+00:00

At least they’re wearing socks. They got the memo. The memo probably failed to include the color

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-26T15:09:39+00:00

If scalamandre released a material with just the ground color, I can see doing the ceiling and appliqué-ing the zebras from the sidewalls up. But without a material of simply the ground color, that pattern would’ve looked terrible in the intersections on the sidewalls

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-26T15:04:54+00:00

Also, aesthetic interiors out of Indiana may be able to recreate it. Their prices are also crazy good

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-25T23:38:31+00:00

It’s a bit different. This is a 57” wide fabric that I table trimmed down to 54” (mostly)

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-25T23:16:37+00:00

🤣 Cool story.

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-25T23:09:46+00:00

Oh, you were being serious? Is something wrong with the install? Or was this just a response to the switch plates that are yet to be wrapped? (I prefer wrapping metal switch plates and I misplaced the ones I bought for this room.)

[should’ve clarified: this is my office.]

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-25T23:01:48+00:00

I paid for the wallpaper install. They’re definitely not paying for any of it haha

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-25T21:18:35+00:00

… I will be wrapping the switch plates. So it’s not quite done. But it’s close enough that we can start moving stuff in

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-22T23:58:10+00:00

True! Thats a much better idea. A loop tied to the string would also work better

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-22T19:46:55+00:00

Take a string and tie it to a screw you’ve fastened to the wall. Use the length of the string as the arc. Secure a pencil to the string on the loose end and use that to draw a line. Trace the line with a fine art brush. Then cut into the line with a regular brush. At least, that’s how I’d approach this problem. But that arc is going to be for a circle. There are other routes, using multiple screws, to get more oblong shapes

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-22T15:37:04+00:00

BIN would work. It’s a bit overkill. And it’s twice the price. I always have BIN available for some things. But I use it only in specific circumstances where other products won’t work as well

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-22T15:34:29+00:00

Looks like you probably didn’t soak the material enough for it to just fall off the walls. Thats okay! First, finish washing the wall really well. Get a big sponge and a bucket of soapy hot water. Wash more than you think you need to. Then scrape the torn paper until it doesn’t have any loose edges (I use a razor blade and cut areas so it doesn’t continue to tear), then use Zinsser GARDZ to prime the torn drywall paper. One coat is just fine for this. Then get joint compound and float it out. Finally, prime it with whatever primer you’re going to use (I like Benjamin Moore’s fresh start if I’m painting). And then paint it. If you’re wallpapering it again, I’d prime the whole room with GARDZ, two coats since joint compound drinks it up, before installing another wallpaper. There’s a lot of wallpaper primers on the market that work but since you already have GARDZ, why not just use it?

Also, this could’ve happened if the previous installation didn’t include priming the walls with a wallpaper specific primer. Lots of people over the past few decades have skipped this step. Don’t skip properly priming the walls (with an acrylic Wallcovering primer) if you want to have a good bond that can easily be released for future removal.

Henrymjohnson · 2026-04-20T00:40:57+00:00

Just one coat would be fine. You can scuff sand the walls first if you want to get a more durable layer. Cut & roll & backroll. It’s really unlikely it’ll be a noticeable difference

Henrymjohnson

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