A Grasscloth Wallpaper Tragedy – Addicted 2 Decorating®

Well, this weekend didn’t go as planned. I know that every project has its ups and downs, victories and setbacks. But this particular setback was such a disappointment that it really took the wind out of my sails. Amazingly, I didn’t cry, but it sure did make me want to throw in the towel for a few days, especially with this coming at the end of a week that had already been mentally, emotionally, and physically challenging with Matt’s four-day hospital stay.

Anyway, last Thursday, we had some pretty heavy rain. I didn’t think anything of it, and I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary when I went into the foyer early Friday morning to let Cooper out into this yard.

Yep, that’s water damage on my newly installed grasscloth wallpaper. The damage covers two widths of the wallpaper.

As you can imagine, my heart sank. The good news is that I have enough wallpaper to replace those two pieces. The bad news is that that only leaves me with two pieces left for any future emergencies or accidents, and this is awfully early in the game for me to have to be replacing damaged wallpaper.

Initially, I wasn’t sure where the water was coming from. There were two possibilities — the HVAC system in the attic or a leak in the roof. Honestly, I was hoping for the first one, but I had the HVAC guy out on Friday to check and clean the system, and that wasn’t the problem.

Nope. The culprit is the solar tube skylight, which isn’t even being used right now to provide extra lighting anywhere in our master bedroom suite, but which is still installed in the roof.

I couldn’t get anyone out to fix it over the weekend, and now we’re about to have more rain today. I’m feeling quite frustrated and deflated right now. I need to get up there this morning and at least see if I can find a temporary fix until someone can come and repair it properly so that it doesn’t do any more damage.

Anyway, that set the tone for my whole weekend, and needless to say, I wasn’t very productive with any of my other projects. I know it’s just wallpaper, and in the whole scheme of things, it’s a minor thing. But it’s so disappointing to work so hard at something and then see part of it ruined within a week or so.

I’m also looking at options for sealing grasscloth wallpaper. I know it can be done, and I might test out a few options on these two damaged pieces before I take them down and replace them. I’ll keep y’all updated on which option (if any) I think works best. Or if you know of any product that works great for sealing wallpaper (especially grasscloth), please let me know! I’m open to all ideas right now.

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Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.