Step by step wallpapering

Happy New Year - I made it back on time - just about.  I confess to having papered the room after lunch on Saturday which is my blog post day, but here I am.  Hopefully I will be able to keep some progress going on my project and stop by and share with you each week.  'What japes, Pip!'

I have done a ton of stuff about wallpapering through my many blogs and even YouTube but I thought I might offer a step by step instruction here for any newbies.  Apologies to the 'got it sorted' folk; hopefully I might have something a bit more interesting next week.

1.  Measure the height of the room

2.Trim one long edge of your paper if it needs it for any reason.  This is is on a sort of photo quality paper and has a white frame all round.

3.  Work out the width of the strip you need to cut.  Here my room height is 7.75 inches and the total width of my skirting board and small coving that is going in is about an inch.  I want the trims to slightly overlap the paper (this gives the neatest edge) but leave some wood bare for the trims to adhere to; this is better fix than just sticking the trims on top of the wallpaper.  So I will cut my strips 7 inches wide.

4.  Start with the paper for the back wall.  Score gently on the back of the paper a bit under a quarter of an inch in from the edge and fold it sharply over.  This will allow the paper to go into the corner neatly and give a slight wrap over onto the side walls.  No walls of a dolls house fit snugly together as they do in a real life plastered wall and so there is always something of a slight gap.   If you do this little overlap, it doesn't show in terms of wallpapering and it covers that gap nicely.

5. Snug the paper tightly into its corner using the folded edge.  Hold it firmly and then make a firm crease (fingernail will do) where the other corner will be.

6. Fold it over well and make a very sharp crease

7.  Trim a small edge like you did for the other side.

8.  Cut the paper for the two side walls without a folded edge

9.  The glue I use is a ready made border adhesive.  I am fairly sure it is probably just a basic PVA glue (like Aleene's etc) but it does feel silkier and goes on more easily - maybe it has water or something else added?  I have experimented with watering down PVA and using wallpaper paste etc but this is decidedly the easiest, cleanest and cheapest glue for papering for sure.

10.  Get a surface you don't mind cleaning up like this silicone baking liner (!) because you will make a mess.  Go over the back of the paper generously with a wiggle of glue and then spread it smoothly and evenly over every teeny bit of the paper taking care to take it to the very edge.  Easiest way to do this is with your hands and smear it until it feels evenly coated and sweep over all the edges to make sure they are covered.  I said it would be messy.

11.  Line up one of your folded edges carefully into the corner of the room.  Press down along that edge, taking care to make sure the little overlap on the side wall is well glued down.  Then work you way gently across the paper, dabbing and smoothing with a soft cloth (and your hand) to the other creased corner.  Handle the paper carefully to avoid getting glue on the surface.  If you do smear it, just try to clean it off with a slightly dampened cloth, try not to rub.  All papers and prints will behave differently.  At the worst you will have paper that sucks up liquid and tears and breaks when it is only slightly damp and sometimes you find printing with colours that run or smudge.  As with everything in life it is generally best to buy the best quality you can afford from a reputable merchant.  I have only ever had one absolutely useless paper and I very soon realised it was unusable so gave up on it and bought something else.  So, if you find dreadful things are happening when you are wallpapering it may well be the paper not you -  don't give up, just try another choice.

12. Clean and dry your pasting surface between pasting each piece of paper to make sure the good side stays clean.  Paste and stick up the other two walls and..... voila....one wallpapered room.