Whether you’ve just moved house and are decorating to cover up old and outdated wallpaper, are selling up and want to make your house more attractive to potential buyers, or want a fresh new feel for your home, hanging wallpaper can provide the solution for you.

Hanging wallpaper rather than a fresh coat of paint can be the best choice in a number of situations. As well as the obvious benefit of not having to do multiple coats of paint, wallpaper can provide stylish, conventional or contemporary designs to suit your taste that can transform a room and meet your interior design needs.

As with any DIY job, once you have purchased your materials, preparation is key. Moving furniture out of the way and setting up your paste table are the obvious things to do but before you get started with cutting your wallpaper to size and mixing your wallpaper paste, you need to ensure you have carried out the necessary surface preparation so your wallpaper stays stuck to the wall and you can ensure a quality finish to your walls.

Hanging lining paper is one way of ensuring a smooth surface for your new wallpaper, and this is particularly useful if the wall you are hanging wallpaper on has previously been painted with gloss paint or an oil based sealant or paint. This is because these products can make it difficult for your wallpaper to stick to the wall, whereas having a layer of lining paper on the wall first provides a more absorbent layer that the wallpaper paste can bond your wallpaper to.

Whether you make the decision to use lining paper or not, however, there is another important job to be done first. Before hanging any paper on your wall, you need to make sure you start off with a smooth, clean surface. A quick drying silicon based poly filler is the ideal product to use as this will smooth out any dips and knocks in your walls from accidental bumps to screw and nail holes. Make sure you choose a filler that is suitable for sanding and leave to dry in line with the manufacturer’s guidelines. Most quick drying polyfiller products tend to be dry within 1 hour of application if filling cracks and holes of no more than 1mm in depth.

Once dry, use a sanding block to gently rub away the top surface so it is flush with the rest of your wall and you should then be ready to proceed with hanging your wallpaper. Make sure you have everything you need, including wallpaper paste, a sponge, a paste table, a pasting brush, a pair of scissors for cutting your paper to size and, of course, your wallpaper itself.

If you don’t fancy the potentially messy job of hanging wallpaper yourself, or don’t have time for DIY, localtraders.com can put you in touch with quality local painting and decorating specialists in your area. Submit your details today and we’ll send your details to 6 local professionals.

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