Home DIY: Wallpaper hacks to roll out for a professional finish

From preparation and set-up to cutting, pasting, products and hanging, we've got it all covered in this easy-to-follow guide

Paste-the-wall products are ideal for entry-level wallpaper warriors. File picture

Presuming your walls are clean, smooth, and sized — if they are newly plastered — lining paper forms the ideal receiving surface for wallpaper, and ensures any tiny imperfections are cloaked. Larger lumps and bumps will show up as the paste dries and pulls the paper tight to the wall.

Don’t ignore wall prep. The lining paper is hung horizontally, not vertically.

This gives you some brilliant hands-on experience in measuring, creasing, cutting, pasting, and making concertina folds, and you will soon discover what tools you prefer for creasing and cutting.

PREP

Allow an extra day and embrace this step even if you haven’t papered before. One of the big differences in the joints between lining paper lengths and wallpaper is that the liners should be about 2mm apart so that their seams don’t show up and ruin the finish of your wallpaper. Just hang each section and slide the seams gently apart where needed.

Before you start papering, paint the wall or lining paper with a matt emulsion where the panel’s seams of the wallpaper will fall, and allow this to dry.

Use the ground colour of the wallpaper (black could be a pain but a mid-tone is fine). This will hide minute seam openings or gaps at the roll ends (quite likely to happen in your first project).

Don’t caulk the skirting until after you paper the room. This allows you to tuck the paper behind the edge of the skirting and then caulk and paint. Invest in a seam roller (€5-€9) to apply just a little more pressure to the place where all wallpaper is most likely to lift.

Have all your tools to hand on a belt for pencils, rulers, and knives (retracted please). Before you open the rolls, check that batch numbers match and that the shade/pattern all agree. Go through the brand instructions on the roll itself because, together with the keys for pasting type, they may offer other tips for this particular paper (alternative hanging for a plain paper can be an unexpected one).

SETTING UP

Deciding where to start your papering can eliminate awkward slim cuts and seam positions near doors, windows, and important features. Measure the walls, divide this by your roll width and start where it suits. 

Now we need to mark the starting position on the wall. A professional will almost often start at the centre of a dominant wall or work off a focal point. Vital tip — do not use a corner as a straight edge to start. Corners are not always true, and this will knock your work off. 

Plumb and then mark a vertical line at your chosen starting point. Hang your first panel working off that line you drew, not the vertical line created by the corner of a wall. Use a plumb-bob or IR laser level — whatever suits your way of working. Plumb every new wall out from a corner, don’t just turn the corner and wing it.

CUTTING PAPER

The start of the roll is not always the start of the pattern — examine it and decide where you want it to land on the ceiling. We can expect to use around seven to eight rolls for a typical bedroom of 3.5m x 3.5m with a 2.4m high ceiling using 10m rolls.

Wallpapering tables can be useful for a hundred other things other than cutting and pasting wallpaper, including picnic/BBQ duty and other adventures in light DIY — well worth the investment.

Roll out the paper with the design side down, ensuring it is going in the vertical direction you want. Now, gently roll the first metre of the paper in the opposite direction. This will help to keep the paper flat.

A 55cm timber batten is ideal for holding the rest of the roll in place when your lengths are unfurled. Having measured the wall, skirting to the ceiling, add 5cm-10cm to each end (be mindful of how the start of the design on the top corner influences the final look).

A straight-match geometric can allow for some creative drop-match ideas. With this diamond repeat, lining up is an easy task.

Use large, sharp scissors, or a snap-off retractable DIY knife — dull blades drag and tear the wallpaper. Mark off a straight line with a pencil and nice big carpenter’s set square on the paper, or find your measurement, mark it, and fold the paper back on itself over the roll to create a crease, using the edge of the roll to get a nice straight line. Having double-checked everything, make that first cut.

We now have our first panel of paper with a surplus we can trim to suit tiny changes in the ceiling level and height (not plunging eaves). Take a pencil and number the piece as “no 1” on the backside, with an arrow showing the direction it will be hung.

Cutting the second length, the only difference will be matching up the pattern at the seams for straight-match and putting any match-drop in the right position using the repeat/match-drop on your packaging and your eye.

Slide the second section over the first using that length on your table, and check the match and excess is correct. If you’re lucky, using a half-drop repeat, every second panel of paper will be the same (numbers one, three, five and so on), and can be cut using matching lengths — panel one for panel three, for instance.

Consistently check them off each other before pasting.

PASTING AND HANGING

The most crucial section of the paper to get right is the first one on each individual wall.

You can use a second fresh roll to start the second panel — a popular hack to reduce waste — just keep track of which roll is which. 

If you have bravely opted for a paste-the-paper product, the concertina fold is a key skill to guide the pasted paper off the table to the wall, dropping it down like a Roman blind in sections. 

The wet paper wants to tear. Be very specific and gentle as you work. There’s a nice, no-nonsense guide on B&Q’s Youtube channel.

Above all, start pasting at the centre and work out to the seams on your table. And, when pasting the wall — be generous. Dry seams will lead to the paper lifting.

Working off multiple rolls directly on the wall and cutting off at the skirting is a brilliant time-saver when it works and an unmitigated paper-wasting disaster when it doesn’t.

When hanging directly off the roll, a popular technique, unfurl the roll to the ceiling and have a helper mark it off by 5cm-10cm at the bottom to allow for adjustments (around half the depth of the skirting board).

Expect to slightly, and very gently, slide and manipulate the paper on the wall after it’s up. Don’t panic — it’s made to take a little moving around.

FINAL FINISH

Wallpapering is not something to rush, but do not wait to deal with air bubbles when the paste has dried. Lift the paper from the bottom or top edge and gently guide it back, smoothing it down with your dry brush and the flat of your hand from the centre out to the seams.

Use a damp sponge to remove any spatters of paste or adhesive. For joins where you’ve turned around a corner, use a touch of border/overlap adhesive to seal the deal (Solvite 240g, €12).

When trimming excess at the ceiling or base, don’t score up the wall with a blade. Use the blunt edge of closed scissors to score the paper against the return at the ceiling, pull the paper gently away from the wall, and use the scissors to cut along that crease. Smooth the paper back up on the wall.