Wallpapering Tips

When I was first married, my wife Kathy and I wallpapered many of the wall surfaces in our first two homes. I had absolutely no training and picked it up rather quickly. As I look back, I was extremely lucky! I should have had lots of bubbles, puckered seams and overall failure. I did have a few of the above and I sort of thought they were normal. But now I know that perfection is not that hard to achieve. Here are some of the most important things you need to know.

Primer!

You must prime the walls before you start. Not only does it protect the wall surface from paste damage, but it also helps you hang the paper. The primer slows the drying time of the adhesive and gives you plenty of time to work and move the paper.

Click here to view a video on wallpaper installation tips.

Relaxation

I am not talking about you but the paper. When you activate the paste on a prepasted paper, you don't go over and hang it right away. The paper actually expands a little and it can take two or three minutes for this to happen. Some papers take longer to relax or expand. That is the actual term, relax.

The way you achieve this is to paste a strip of paper and then book it. Booking means you fold the back of the paper on itself. In other words, you paste a piece of paper and then fold it back so the bottom half of the strip that has the paste contacts the top half that has been pasted. Line it up carefully so that the edges meet. This prevents the edges from drying out.

Pasting or Activating the Paste

Most papers today are pre-pasted. It can be a nightmare activating this paste using a trough or a bathtub. I recently discovered another awesome product made by the Zinsser Company. It is called SURE-GRIP. It is a paste activator. This product is a fine powder that is mixed with water. You stir it and let the water sit for 30 minutes. At the end of the wait period you end up with a slippery liquid that is the consistency of thin pancake batter. You apply this to the back of pre-pasted paper instead of dipping it in water. It is quick, easy and it does a superb job of maximizing the holding power of the adhesive. If you soak a pre-pasted paper the traditional way you can actually remove the paste! This activator is the only way to go. I will always use it in the future.

Plumb

You must start your first piece of paper plumb. You should also start hanging paper in the corner of the room that you don't often look at. You do this so that when you hang your last strip and it doesn't match it is hardly visible. Every time you go around a corner you must re-plumb the paper. I do this before I hang the piece. I take a piece of scrap paper that is dry and butt it up against the last full sheet of paper that was hung, fold it into and around the corner and make a light pencil mark where it stops. I then create a crisp plumb line using a level up and down across this mark.

Corners

The professional way to do a corner is to install a full piece of paper into the corner. You temporarily let it wrap around the corner. You make sure the paper is matched up with the last full sheet and you smooth it into the corner. Then use a sharp razor knife and cut the paper precisely in the corner. Pull the two pieces of paper apart and pull back the smoothed paper from the corner about one inch. Install the cut half of paper around the corner and hold it about 1/4 inch off the plumb line so that you have about 1/8 inch or so of the paper folding back around the corner. Be sure you try to match the pattern for top and bottom elevation. Smooth the second piece of paper once it is positioned exactly. If the paper is vinyl coated, you must use a vinyl to vinyl adhesive where the two pieces of paper overlap one another.

Tools

I use a slender razor knife tool that has a retractable blade. The blade has little tips that you break off as the tip becomes dull. You can find one wherever wallpaper is sold. I trim paper at the top and bottom using a 6 inch wide drywall knife that I gently press into the corner to make a crisp line.