Wallpapering tips and when to choose paper

When paper beats paint

Feature walls, period rooms wanting a traditional pattern, and spaces where you want texture (grasscloth, textured vinyls) all suit paper better than paint. Paper can also disguise minor wall imperfections that paint would highlight, provided a lining paper is used underneath.

When paint is the better choice

Rooms likely to be redecorated frequently, walls in poor condition needing significant repair, and bathrooms or kitchens with high moisture exposure (unless a specific washable vinyl is used) generally suit paint better. Paint is also far quicker to change again later.

Substrate preparation is the real skill

Walls need to be sound, smooth and free of old adhesive residue before paper goes up. Any patched plaster, filled cracks or uneven areas will telegraph through, especially under raking light or a plain paper.

• Strip old paper fully rather than papering over it
• Fill and sand any cracks or holes flush
• Seal bare plaster to control suction
• Remove old adhesive residue that can show as a stain

Lining paper matters more than people expect

Cross-lining a wall before hanging the decorative paper evens out minor surface variation, improves adhesion, and gives a better finished surface, particularly for pale or textured papers where flaws are most visible. We line as standard on anything but a perfectly sound, previously papered wall.

Pattern match and pattern repeat

Check the pattern repeat before ordering, it determines how much waste to allow for matching across drops. Large-repeat patterns need more paper bought than the raw wall area suggests, and matching accuracy at seams is one of the clearest signs of a well-hung job.

Paste choice depends on the paper

Standard wallpaper pastes suit most papers, but heavier vinyls, textured papers and delicate hand-printed papers each call for different formulations, and ready-pasted papers need their own handling. Using the wrong paste is a common cause of lifting seams later.

• Standard paste for lightweight and medium-weight papers
• Heavy-duty paste for vinyls and textured or heavyweight papers
• Overlap or seam adhesive for vinyl-to-vinyl joins
• Manufacturer-specified paste for delicate or hand-printed papers

Where seams and edges fail

Lifting seams almost always trace back to insufficient paste, poor wall preparation, or hanging in a room that's too cold or damp for the adhesive to cure properly. Getting the room to a stable temperature before and during hanging avoids most of these issues, as does allowing paste the correct soak time before hanging rather than rushing straight from pasting table to wall.

Working around corners, sockets and awkward junctions

Internal and external corners are rarely perfectly square, so a strip run straight across a corner will end up visibly out of plumb by the time it reaches the next wall. Careful hanging wraps a small overlap around the corner and starts the next strip freshly plumbed on the new wall, rather than continuing a single strip around the bend. Sockets, switches and fittings need the paper cut and eased around them cleanly, with faceplates removed rather than papered up to and around, which always looks less finished.

• Never carry a single strip around an internal or external corner
• Re-plumb each new wall with a fresh strip rather than trusting the last line
• Remove socket and switch faceplates before papering, refit afterwards
• Trim around obstacles with a sharp blade and a straight edge, not scissors

Storage, offcuts and future repairs

Keeping a labelled offcut of any wallpaper used in a home, along with the roll batch number where visible, makes life much easier if a section is ever damaged by a knock, a leak or furniture being moved. Dye lots can vary subtly between batches, so a stored offcut from the original run matches far better than a newly bought roll years later. We recommend clients keep offcuts in a dry, flat location rather than discarding them once a room is finished.