I'd like to do a short course in wallpapering skills. So far all the local colleges I've approached offer only extended painting and decorating courses aimed at the trade. Does anyone know of a course that offers what I'm looking for? Preferred location: within 100 miles of London Preferred duration: short! Hope you can help. TIA Rob
Why not try and get someone to show you. It really is quite simple to do. The technique that is. The rest is just practice.
Funnily enough the best way of plaserboarding is very similar. Get all the boards cut and laid out first then mix the adhesive and apply it.
Allow the paper to get wet enough to stetch so do four or five at a time then while waiting, paste another 4 or 5 up. When you have hung the first paste the third and apply the second set.
You may find that matching the patterns works better every other length on some designs. And of course start in the middle of the wall using a plumb line to keep the first one straight. The rest just butt up to that one.
The message from r snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com (Rob) contains these words:
If you mean, for DIY home purposes, nobody needs a course; it's
*really* easy to teach yourself to do it very well, just by doing it.If you're nervous, buy a roll of cheap end-of-line patterned wall paper for a couple of quid and use it to practise with on your prepared wall at home. Once you've put up a few matched strips and seen how easy it is, you can pull it straight off again before the paste dries.
Janet.
The key to easy wallpapering is to PVA seal the wall so that the paper glides around easily and you get lots of time to re-position it. Cutting wet paper accurately is a matter of experience and patience. For me it remains a frustrating business.
In article , stuart noble
Does it run down the angle so you don't pull back like you need to for sciccors? What make/model, can't say I've ever spotted one in a shed but I've not been looking that hard.
I'm normally pretty good a cutting straight lines with sciccors but not with wet wallpaper on the wall. I think it's because of the awkward angle you have to work and you really need 3 hands, 1 for the sciccors and one each side of the cut so the paper doesn't move as you cut.
A plain sharp blade works well on dry paper but soggy wallpaper has a tendancy to snag, I've a rotating blade on a stick but that still snags.
"stuart noble"
No make on it I'm afraid. Bought from IIRC Homebase, but many years ago. Uses a sort of rotating small pair of scissor blades. And, yes, it goes into a right angle - like between ceiling and wall etc so you don't pull back the paper. It doesn't give as perfect cut as scissors, but more a very fine wavy one - a bit like a perforated edge. You'd have to look close to see this, though.
Done a bit of googling, Trimeasy?
I wonder if a fine spiked wheel would work to make a perforated edge. Where can you get fine spiked wheels?
Haberdashery department?
Oo, what would they use 'em for and what would they be called? There is an excellent sewing shop in Penrith.
Marking out material IIRC, I'm sure my mother has one
I have a number of those marking wheels, but none of them is fine enough for the suggested use on wallpaper.
Sheila
The best cutting method I've found is to hold a 4" scraper hard against the edge you want to retain and use a cheap, soft steel, pen knife that you can sharpen every few minutes on sandpaper. The Opinel curved blade is ideal. A lot of the trouble with papering could be overcome if you could cut a straight line to join up with a fresh edge. Overlapping and cutting through both works sometimes but usually one side or the other tears. Peel back and scissors doesn't work well for me because I can never see the bloody mark I'm supposed to be following properly.
I dry-cut the top of each strip before pasting and so only need to trim the bottom edge, which my 2 hands seem to manage reasonably well. I found the crease at the top made by the back of a pair of dressmaking scissors (nick them from a handy female) can only easily be seen on the paste side, which you cannot cut with any reliability, and trying to go along the patterned side seemed to need not just 3 hands, but also to be tackled from above, left-handed, and I'm not good at hanging from ceilings.
Cutting to fit when dry does mean you can only work one strip at a time. But I'm in no hurry. My time costs £0/hr.
Hanging to a picture rail/coving helps. If you paint them last (as you should) you can cover up any slight irregularities caused by cutting along the idented line on the paste side (as you have to do) (as long as you err on the slightly long) - ditto with the skirting board. If you are matching patterns, I would have said dry cutting anything was a very bad idea as you have to slide the paper to match the pattern. Papering to a ceiling with no coving is a nightmare and never looks good.
The problem is that less experienced people err on the side of caution and it's a hell of a lot easier to get wallpaper paste of gloss paint than gloss paint off wallpaper! If you have the nerve, the brushes and the steady hand, you should go for it and gloss last. (No responsibility accepted for gloss splodges :o) ).
As long as the pattern match can be seen near the top of each strip, it's no great problem. Most of the walls in my house are papered either to a picture rail or coving. In many cases a straight line cut can be made with a razor along a suitable edge on the paper table, having "nicked" the paper at each side to indicate the line. Where the top is more wobbly, I will free-cut with scissors.
I am curious as to why you regard "gloss last" as the right way to go about things. Painting onto wallpaper looks terrible, and as (ime) the paper is changed more frequently, stripping the top layer would yank off bits of paint. If the paint is underneath, no such problem arises. Painting coving/rails and skirtings first also means that the room can be re-used before the wallpapering is completed, if necessary. As soon as the skirtings are done, I can arrange for carpets to be fitted without worrying about mess later. Papering is pretty clean.
Gloss gives the best definite (enough) continuous line and will cover the paper edges - there are always some paper edge inconsistencies which will show (well there are when I do it). I wouldn't repaper a room without repainting the gloss anyway - the concept of repapering "often" is a bit foreign though! I agree that obvious paint on paper doesn't look good but I try to hang well enough all the paint is doing is covering the edge.
I agree that there is a clash with carpet fitting which I have never resolved but they tend to b*gg*r up the paint as well! I have used a professional decorator and he glosses last and with the carpets in place.
I used to do it your way but have just started glossing last. I have done one room with the carpets in place (reasonably successfully).
At the end of the day, once the furniture is in and the family have started knock 6 bells out of the room anything that looks OK from 5 feet away is OK, I guess! Painting last covers this category.
Well, quite. That and the fact that the only person who even notices any slight imperfections is the diy-er him(her-)self anyway...
The message from "Bob Mannix" contains these words:
Nah, far better to paint the picture rail and skirting first, extending the paint about an inch underneath where the edge of the paper will go so no gaps will show.
Proper wallpaper scissors make cutting much easier, and use a dry firm brush to block the paper well down into the crease (at the skirting board edge). If you're a careful person, run the blunt side of the scissor blade along the crease gently to mark it, without tearing the surface of the paper. Then peel back the paper, cut along the marked crease, and brush the paper back down to a perfect close fit at the skirting board.
Janet.
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