Decorating and Installing wallpapers

I have been involved lately in projects that requires decorating with wallpaper. As simple as the job may look , installing it perfectly requires great care and professional handling.

Many corporate organizations in Nigeria now uses wallpapers to improve the ambience and promote their products. Recently  Mrbiggs restaurant and some banks are using wallpapers for their interior  decorations.

Advantages of Wallpapers

(1)You don’t need to paint your wall with expensive paints, just apply a primer under before pasting your paper.

(2)You can easily remove it and place another.

(3)It is dry and easy to handle especially when you understand the techniques.

(4)For a public building is a source of advertisement to your customers, you can write things, and send messages with your graphics on the paper.

(5)Drawings on plain wall seems not acceptable but with paperwall people have grown to like it.

To install, get your paper either printed or bought somewhere.

Clean your wall, this is important if you must get a good finish.

Remove every hanging nails, fill every holes with putty or cement and fix any other damage on your walls.

Now sandpaper to remove any rough patches before applying a coat of paint which is termed primer. It will help the wallpaper glue to the wall. The type of paint you use will depends on the type of glue to buy for the work, you can ask a professional for an idea on this based on the paint you used or ask the wallpaper  vendor for a clue.

Applying the wallpaper is where most people get it wrong, just like any other  projects it requires adequate planning on and off the wall before execution.

You must have measured the room horizontally round with a stretch of measuring tape with the  height  it will cover to get the surface area of paper you need.

Get a plywood to spread the wallpaper on it before pasting on wall.

Notice the areas you have to join the wallpapers on the wall, this is where you have to use technical knowhow , make the papers overlap slightly right on the floor when you are mapping them  out. At the intersection , cut the overlap portions at the middle so that the blade will follow same line of paper ontop and the one under, when you remove the pieces slide the two papers and let them join at the points the blade passed, you’ll discover a perfect fix at that junction and if its carefully laid an outsider will not detect  where the papers are joined together . Infact a well finished wallpaper job may confused an outsider to be a painting or drawings on the wall.

Wear a latex glove or rubber to keep the glue off your hands, also get a roller, clean up the surface of the plywood, apply glue on the wallpaper which has been properly cut, then paste on wall, you can adjust before the glue dries up. Place the next one after  (remember to overlap adjoining paper on the ground and cut at the middle, remove the pieces to be left with perfect fitting edges)

Cut any extra sheets carefully with blade and do not cut the papers at any junctions of the wall but at centers of plane surface, just allow the paper to continuously wrap round at the 90 degrees edges.

Use a smoothing tool or a clean roller and roll from the middle of your paper out to the edges to push out any air that would make bubbles.

After installations, clean up the wallpaper with a wet sponge to get rid of any glue that remains behind and also to press down any lumps,bumps and bubbles out of the wallpaper.