Wallpaper can give your interior a fresh, stylish breath of air. While you can always hire a professional to do the wall make-over for your interior, it is becoming more DIY friendly, allowing everyone to give it a go on their own and achieve a perfect result as well. However, even if the procedures are becoming easier, there are still some common mistakes that can be avoided. To help you prepare efficiently for your next interior project, here will be 3 biggest wallpapering mistakes to avoid.
Measuring Just The Right Amount
One common mistake that first time wallpaper installers make is ordering just the right amount of wallpaper for the square footage of the wall without taking into consideration a few things. Walls are rarely perfectly straight as they can be slightly curved in some places or the wall sides can be unevenly straight. Therefore, we always recommend to order wallpaper in the amount to leave an overage on top and bottom of the wall as well as the sides to avoid any surprises and have a perfect even finish and a seamless pattern repeat. To learn more about ordering the right amount of wallpaper for your upcoming interior project visit our Learn & How To page section on How To Measure Your Wall. In the photo above we can see our Subtle Floral Removable Wallpaper just received by Jennifer and ready for installment.
Assuming Wallpaper Will Stick To Any Kind Of Wall Surface
Another common wallpapering mistake is assuming that wallpaper will stick to any kind of wall surface, when actually there are multiple wall textures such as orange peel or popcorn, that should be avoided or prepared for wallpaper installment. Although it is not a good idea to install wallpaper on these textured types of walls, all walls can be prepared for wallpapering. Preparing textured walls can involve grinding, sanding the walls to smoothen them as well as using primer. Furthermore, primer should be used not only before wallpaper installment but as well before painting the wall. This is because, for example, if the glue on the self-adhesive wallpaper is stronger and the wall has not been properly painted, when peeling off the wallpaper, chances are that it might peel off the paint as well.
In the photo above, we can see a great example of a smooth and prepared wall for wallpapering by Jennifer for a beautiful powder room make-over project. If you would like to learn more about how to prepare a wall before wallpaper installment, visit our How To Prepare Walls For Wallpaper blog post for more detailed information. There, however, are also some smooth wall textures that are not meant for wallpaper installment and need to be prepared beforehand, such as cement walls and other wall textures that are porous and can release small particles and reduce the effectiveness of wallpaper glue.
Sometimes wallpaper might be used for a purpose to hide some textured walls. Although even lightly textured walls need to be properly prepared to be clean, dry, free of any grease, stains and old wallcovering, there are some wall textures that can be wallpapered. For example, knockdown walls that are similar to orange peel, but are slightly flatter in texture are more friendlier to wallpaper, but the texture may still be visible through the design if textured enough. Another wall texture is slap blush, that can visually remind of a floral pattern. If it has flatter, wider lines, the wallpaper can stick to it, but it is important to make sure it is flat enough to not cause the pattern to wrinkle. To hide the textured walls better, opt for a darker wallpaper color rather than lighter or a smaller pattern design as it can camouflage the texture better.
Be Gentle To Your Wallpaper
Wallpaper installation can take some time and concentration for a perfect result, however, the process itself can determine the quality of the final result. Be delicate and gentle to the wallpaper during the installment, as rushing the process can result in scratching, stretching or damaging the wallpaper in any other way that will directly affect the result. Therefore, we advise to plan enough time for a calm and precize installation process and call for a helpful hand not only for a perfect result but to make it fun as well. To learn more about our wallpaper installation procedures, please visit our How-To Wallpaper Installation Video page.
We hope this blog post showing the 3 biggest wallpapering mistakes will help you to better prepare for your wallpapering project for a smooth process and a perfect result as we can see in the beautifully done powder room project above by Jennifer with the Subtle Floral Removable Wallpaper.
