Hanging Wallpaper Guide

There are a few stages to hanging wallpaper. At DIY Focus we are going to take you through these stages briefly and give you some additional hints and tips to help you on along the way.

Wallpapering Starting Off

Start with a plumb line guide, Mark a vertical guide on the wall before you start hanging wallpaper. It is a good idea to start at the corner, Hold one end of the wallpaper in the corner and make a mark for the line on the wall about one inch from the other end so that when you hang the wallpaper you can turn a strip round the corner ensuring that you get a good finish on all the corners.

Using the plumb line, pin the line to the wall at ceiling level so that it runs down the wall over the mark that you made. The chalk lines are great as you can hold the line tight and give the line a ping and you have your guide line.

Cutting the Wallpaper

The best tip I have for getting the correct length of wallpaper for the wall is to hold the paper at the top of the wall with a small overlap for trimming and run the paper down the wall and as you reach the bottom of the wall or skirting board mark the paper. Again allow a small margin for cutting or trimming the wallpaper.

DIY Focus Tip – I always find that to get a straight edge the best way is to fold the wallpaper and cut along the creased line, a Stanley knife is good for this job one of the small ones

Wallpaper Paste

When making up the wallpaper paste you will need to make sure that the paste is strong enough to support the weight of the wallpaper. The strength of most wallpaper pastes can be adjusted by increasing or decreasing the volume of water added to the mix. If you are applying wallpaper to a newly plastered wall, brush a coat of wallpaper paste onto the wall to seal the surface.

Allow the wallpaper paste to soak into the wallpaper for a short period of time, wallpaper expands when it gets wet and ideally you want to hang the wallpaper after it has finished expanding. Otherwise you are in danger of getting bubbles in the paper when it is on the wall.

Hanging the wallpaper

After you have pasted a length of wallpaper press the wallpaper up to the top of the wall overlapping onto the celing then slide the paper into place with the guideline and brush the wallpaper into place.

I would always use a thin Stanley Knife to cut paper to fit. I find it a lot easier than using scissors. Repeat the process to hang subsequent lengths of paper and use a seam roller for the edges.

Please feel free to add any of your own wallpapering hints or tips.