Handyperson DIY: Minor Restoration

​One of the values I learned growing up was that repairing and restoring a damaged or broken item was preferable to tossing it out and buying something new. It’s also really satisfying to fix things.
    I want to share one small aspect of a recent experience I had when I assembled and installed a wall cabinet in our guest bathroom. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go through the whole process!
    The story has to do with repairing the wall on which the cabinet was to be mounted. This bathroom had been wallpapered before we owned the home with an attractive, old-style wall covering. Whoever did it knew how to do it right.
      Or so I thought. When I removed the towel bar from the wall, I found that the bar had been installed prior to the wallpapering, and instead of removing all the hardware, the installer had just cut around it.

    The top two photos show the ragged holes left on each side where the bar had been (click to enlarge). Such a shame, and it could have been so easily avoided!
    (A side note: You can see the previous wallpaper that was underneath. It’s an appalling silver, reflective paper with gold sheaves of wheat. I’ve included a couple of photos of another section of this wallpaper that’s in a hidden part of the master bathroom. You can see just how mirror-like it is. Had the bathrooms been covered in this paper when we first viewed this home, we would have run screaming.)

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     The wall damage had to be fixed, but we no longer have any extra wallpaper with this pattern. Fortunately, some of the wall would be hidden behind a backboard of the new cabinet—so I set out to make some patches. In the hidden area, I located, cut out, and carefully peeled away matching pieces of wallpaper about 1/4" to 3/8" larger than the holes, and I rounded the corners. I then used wallpaper seam adhesive to glue the patches in place. I decided to just cover over the old molly bolts.

    Here’s how the patch on the left side looked when completed. Yes, you can see the edges if you look closely—but it all depends on viewing distance. Two feet is as close as anyone will get.

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   These next two photos show how the patches look with the cabinet installed. Unless you know what you’re looking for, you aren’t likely to find them.

     Finally, here's the installed cabinet. 

     In case you’re interested, this is the Ellsworth model two-door cabinet made by River Ridge.  The color is “taupe.”