Colourfast have carried out numerous paperhanging projects around Sydney over the years, and although paperhanging isn’t as popular as it used to be it is making a come back, with many modern, classic, murals and retro designs becoming trendy.
Wallpaper can be used in any situation, providing you use the correct paper, vinyls are better suited to kitchens, and bathrooms where steam is a consideration.
On walls where there are a lot of surface imperfections, embossed papers such as anaglypta, superglypta, and woodchip are used to help hide these imperfections and are painted over. Lining paper can also be used which is smooth, and is painted over.
Accurate room measurement is essential for ordering wallpaper, the design of the paper should be taken in to account as the size of repeat patterns will dramatically change the amount of paper needed. Hanging paper from alternate rolls is more economical. As most paper comes from overseas it isn’t easy to re order more paper using the same batch no’s therefore it is important to get the correct quantity of paper needed to complete the project.
Before hanging wallpaper lining paper needs to be hung horizontally on the wall this is called cross lining, this evens out surface porosity, helps mask surface imperfections and helps the wallpaper dry out evenly.
Wallpaper Stripping
At some point wallpaper has to be removed, this is a particularly messy and time consuming job. Vinyl wallpaper can be stripped by pulling off the face paper dry, and as with most other papers, can be stripped by scoring the surface, and using a steamer to soak the paper which can then be scraped off. The walls should then be washed with sugar soap to remove all signs of paste prior to painting.
Care should be taken when stripping wallpaper from gyprock walls, if the walls are unsealed, the face paper of the wall can come away with the paper being stripped, leaving an uneven surface to be repaired.