Wallpaper is a wonderful way to cover walls.
It comes in a huge array of styles, colors and patterns, and it’s called wall covering these days because there are many non-paper materials, such as vinyl-coated paper, foil, Mylar and light-weight, vinyl-coated canvas.
Many brands of heavy-duty covering can cover and smooth out walls as rough as concrete block.
A good deal of work is involved in putting up wallpaper or any other covering, but the rewards are worth the fuss.
The three main steps are removal, preparation, and hanging.
Removal tools you’ll need: Steamer or stripping agents, large sponge, scraper with razor blade, wide putty knife for scraping, scoring tool and floor cloths.
If you have a bare plaster or painted wall or bare skim coat, you’re in luck because there is nothing to remove. Go to Step 2.
If not, perhaps the paper on the wall is strippable. To find out, pry up a corner at the top, and pull down at an angle. If it pulls off, it is strippable, and will be easy to take off.
If it is not strippable, put down floor cloths to keep water from the stripping solutions or steamer from messing up your floors.
With ordinary paper, use a steamer, which you can rent and is useful if you are doing several rooms. The steam penetrates the paper and softens the paste.
If you are doing just one room, stripping agents work well. Mix the stripping agent with hot water and wet the walls, which will soften the paste.
Either way, working a small area at a time, scrape off the wet paper with a wide putty knife or razor-blade scraper. Don’t let the scraped wet paper hit the floor; it will stick just like regular wallpaper and be the devil to remove–and might ruin the floor.
Scoring
If the paper is vinyl coated or painted, the steamer or stripping agents will not penetrate. You have to score the paper or paint.
Wallpaper shops carry a scoring tool called Tiger Claws or Paper Tiger that scores the surface as it is rolled on the wall. Alternately, use an ordinary handsaw, bringing the many saw teeth down the surface in one sweep. These tools will score the finish, not the wall.
Scoring allows steam or stripping agent to penetrate. Then you can scrape.
Plasterboard
If your walls are plasterboard, wallpaper will be difficult to remove without tearing and gouging the plasterboard paper.
If the plasterboard was painted before the paper was applied, removal will be easier. Unpainted plasterboard is a big problem. Try a steamer, then scrape carefully.
Fill and smooth scratches and gouges with joint compound.
Gouges and scratches can show up under ordinary paper. Consider applying a special covering to smooth them out; wallpaper shops carry such coverings.
Prep work
Preparation tools and materials you’ll need: Large sponge, wide putty knife, paintbrush and roller, joint compound and glue size.
Wash off any paste residue with water, or detergent and water.
Fill small gouges, scratches and other blemishes with joint compound, which is better than spackling compound or patching plaster because it has a glue in it and will stick well. Let it set and sand smooth.
Glue size the walls
Glue size is a glue that you mix with water to a consistency of thin paint and apply to the walls with a roller or brush. It’s an interesting material: It allows the paper being applied to move while you are trying to match it to its neighbor. It also makes it easier to remove the paper later.
Some pastes claim to be self-sizing. Use the glue size no matter what the pastes claim.
Tool kit
Hanging tools and materials you’ll need: Paste brush, smoothing brush, pasting table, long straightedge, short straightedge, spirit level, utility knife, lots of blades, seam roller, paste bucket, soaking pan, pencil, tape rule, lots of old newspapers, wallpaper, paste, and seam sealer.
This is the fun part, but while this work is not complicated, it is not easy, either.
One good thing about wallpaper is that when you put it up, it’s done in one fell swoop. No waiting to apply a second coat as with paint.
Some of the tools, such as the pasting table and long straightedge, can be rented, but you may not have to. For a table, use a piece of plywood on the kitchen or dining room table (with protection) or on a bed. Use a 4-foot-long spirit level as a long straightedge. It measures plumb (vertical) as well as level (horizontal).
Determine how much paper you will need. Paper generally comes in double and triple rolls, and a single roll equals about 32 square feet. Figure the square footage of each wall (multiply height by width), and add these areas together for the total wall surface. Divide by 32 to get the number of single rolls you will need. Include all windows and doors in your calculations; this will provide a fudge factor to account for waste and accidents.
Overestimating is better than underestimating: You can return unused, unopened double or triple rolls, but if you have to go back for more paper, you may not be able to find the same dye lot and the color may not match perfectly.
The paste you buy depends on the kind of paper you are hanging; the dealer can help you there.
Modern prepasted papers are much better than early ones, and generally, wallpaper people say, you do not need to use paste with them.
One thing to be aware: Using paste with prepasted paper essentially doubles the gluing power of the paste, making it very hard, if not impossible, to remove.
Start at a corner, preferably behind a door.
If the paper is 24 inches wide, make a vertical pencil mark 23 1/2 inches from a corner. Use a long spirit level to make this pencil line; the level measures vertical as well as horizontal.
Cut several strips of paper at least the length of the wall height, making sure the strips are long enough to allow proper matching of the pattern.
On the mark
If the paper is prepasted, simply dip the strip in the soaking pan for the prescribed amount of time, then apply its right edge along the pencil mark, allowing the paper to turn the corner by half an inch. Smooth the paper from the top down with the wide smoothing brush; it won’t hurt to press the edge with the seam roller.
Cut the top and bottom off with a sharp utility knife. If the knife starts to tear the paper instead of cutting it, you need a new blade.
Continue hanging strips, butting the seams snugly with the pattern properly aligned.
If the paper is not prepasted, place a layer of newspaper on your improvised pasting table. If the strip is longer than the table, you may have to book the strips.
To do this, place the strip face down on the table and paste the bottom half. Then fold the bottom up on itself, exposing the unpasted upper half on the table. Paste this half.
Pasting is a technique by itself. To paste, use a wide brush, and run a generous brush full down the middle of the strip. Then with a fresh brush full, paste sideways from middle to edge. You will get the knack of this quickly and you will see why it works so well, especially in pasting the edges of the paper.
Book it
Booking will make handling the pasted strip easier. Place the top part of the strip against the pencil line, smooth off, then pull the folded half down, until the whole strip is against the pencil line and smoothed. Cut the strip at the ceiling and the floor (or baseboard).
After hanging each strip, wipe it clean with a wet sponge, rinsing the sponge often.
Continue hanging strips until you come to the next corner. Cut the strip that turns the corner so it can turn the corner by half an inch.
Turning the corner by any more than half an inch will result in hopeless wrinkling.
At windows and doors, apply an unpasted strip so it covers part of the window or door.
Then cut roughly around the window or door so that when you paste it in place, you can tuck the pieces around the top and bottom of the window and the top of the door without tearing paper. Then cut to fit.
When you come to the original corner, the paper might not match, but there is nothing you can do about that.
If it is behind a door, no one will notice but you.
