Wallpaper Preparation
You've heard the phrase "It's all in the prep..." and that is true. How the surface is prepared is the key to how the finished project will look. Below we look at the following
Stripping paper
Sealing, Filling & sanding
Lining papers
Wall papers come in a variety of types and materials from papers, vinyls, anaglyptas, lincrusta and silks to name but a few. They each have different needs when being hung and can each come off again in different ways. We use a number of techniques and tools to remove different wallcoverings and some are easier than others. A steam wallpaper stripper may actually be one of the last methods we use!
This image is of a training wall at the Dulux Academy and it shows the typical type of damage that can be done to a wall when removing wallpaper with a scraper.
We will be using this wall later to highlight how this can affect the finish and the importance of preparing surfaces properly.
This type of wall really needs to be sealed, filled and then sanded back to offer a better surface to then work on. It would very much depend on the wall and the specific types of damage that would determine how it should be sealed, filled and sanded.
There are specialist treatments for sealing bare plaster and deeper holes that would be suitable in some instances.
Once filled then the wall can be sanded and smoothed to provide a good working surface ready for the next step
At this stage we can move on to lining paper to make sure the surface we are working for Wallpaper or Paint is ready for that.
Lining paper underneath wallpaper ensures that the paste used has a uniform surface and rate for the moisture in the paste to work at, which in turn means the wallpaper will stick and dry more evenly and be more durable for longer. Lining paper under paint ensures a uniform surface and colour that the paint can be applied to. In both cases using lining paper stops what is known as "mapping".
Using that damaged wall we saw earlier and putting some paper on it directly is not the best idea as you can see from these pictures. The image of the sky and clouds on the is of a mural paper that was quite thick that has been hung on this wall. At first glance it looks great but ... If you look closely at the left hand side of the clouds and the wall below them you can see the damage on the wall underneath showing through and looking like a "map" texture in exactly the pattern of damage in the left hand side of the photo of the damaged wall.
Lining Papers can come in a variety of strengths and for specific purposes such as helping with fire resistance or to help with resisting damp. These next pictures show the difference lining paper can make to ensure a good working surface. In this case the lining paper being hung vertically would be used to provide a good surface for a top coat of paint... lining paper for wallpaper would be hung horizontally.
You can see in the first picture below that this wall has not got a brilliant finish from where previous wallpaper has been stripped ... and that is transformed in the second picture that now has a uniform surface and colour for us to work on.
If the wall had been treated properly and lining paper had been used in the example above then we would have avoided having the "mapping" showing through and the mural wallpaper would have looked at it's best.
We can advise on what is needed for your walls, how they can be best prepared and ensure your finished paint or wallpaper can looks it's best for many years to come.
