Julian Cassell's DIY Blog

How to wallpaper a feature wall, as a topic, is mainly about deciding on the best position to start papering. In other words, there is no need to alter any part of the hands-on ‘how-to’ wallpapering technique, but there is a need to be as accurate as possible when deciding on where to hang your first length. Okay, with the smallest patterns, you don’t need to worry too much, but with most papers you really need to concentrate on centralizing any design, and ensuring that when you get to the corners, you’ve chosen the best possible place for the corner to ‘cut’ down through the wallpaper. Below are the principles I follow when deciding how I’m going to set about wallpapering a feature wall.

Finding the mid-point of your feature wall is essential.

First of all, find out exactly where the mid-point of your feature wall lies. Everything else is dependent on this measurement, so take your time, and with the help of a spirit level and pencil, draw a light vertical line on the wall, from ceiling to floor. Here, I’ve used a red dotted line to represent the mid-point.

How you use the mid-point will be determined by your particular wallpaper design. The two options below show the sort of thought processes that need to be involved. One option demonstrates using the mid-point line as a guide for positioning the edge of your first length, and the second option shows using your mid-point line as a centralizing guideline that runs through the main part of the pattern in your first length.

Feature Wall Option 1 The first length is hung with its edge on the mid-point line. You then continue to hang full lengths either side of this until you reach the corners. Notice that you are left with two narrower lengths (in this situation, one full length can be cut in half, vertically, to provide you with your two lengths).	1a. Hanging the edge of the first length along the mid-point.
The finished product provides a well-balanced effect, with the corners ‘cutting’ through the green diamonds in the pattern.	1b. Leaves equal sized strips for the corners.

Feature Wall Option 2 The same paper can be hung by centralizing the first length with the pattern. In this case, the vertical green diamond shapes are positioned so that the mid-point line effectively bisects one vertical column of diamonds. Continue hanging either side of the first length until you reach the corners. Notice that this leaves you with a narrow length in one corner and nearly a full-width length in the other.

2a. Pattern in first length bisects the mid-point of the wall.

The finished product is again well-balanced, and probably preferable to option 1, because the corners are cutting through the less dominant part of the design i.e. the white diamonds rather than the green ones.

2b. Leaves different widths of strip in the corners, but creates a very well-balanced effect.

Feature wall considerations

• To help your planning process, it’s always a good idea to cut a length of paper, with a reasonable sized overlap on each end, and temporarily fix it (dry) in what will be the position of your first length (use a couple of bits of tape – taking care not to damage the paper surface). You can then stand back, and decide on horizontal alignment of the pattern, and get a feel for where will be best for the corners to cut through the design. Planning is therefore a combination of accurate measurements with a tape measure, and visual judgements with a temporarily positioned length of wallpaper.
• For much more information about ‘how-to’ wallpapering technique, and the general points on where to start wallpapering in different situations, please check out some of my other wallpapering posts which are linked to in the ‘Related Posts’ section further down the page.

Tags: wallpaper, walls

This entry was posted on Friday, January 20th, 2012 at 5:03 pm and is filed under 'How-to' Guides, Painting and Papering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.