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Wall Paper |
The Low Down on Wallpaper
by Dawn West
Home Improvement Ideas Columnist
I spent tonight helping my friend Joshua paint his new apartment. And when I say new apartment, I mean new to him. The place has been well lived in, and the previous tenants had an unfortunate fondness for a color Joshua perfectly described as "Headache Yellow."
"Headache Yellow" and another favorite of mine, "Tylenol PM Blue" (I came up with that one - you should have seen this bathroom!) are now a beautiful warm taupe called Sawyer's Fence. (In a very Tom Sawyer fashion, Joshua got me to help him paint by telling me how fun it would be. Tricky, Joshua, very tricky). Hours of cutting in, stippling, and rolling coat after coat - turns out Tylenol PM Blue is hard to cover - left me wondering, wouldn't wallpaper have been a lot easier? A few strips and voila, gorgeous walls - or is there more to it than that?
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Wallpaper Details
Turns out, wallpaper is easier to install than ever thanks to great pre-trimmed, pre-pasted, tear and crease resistant paper. But there's more to getting a great wallpaper look than just slapping up some strips. Here are a few tidbits your success with wallpaper will depend on:
Wallpaper Tidbit #1 - Surface Prep Matters
Give your walls a thorough cleaning before applying wallpaper. Mildew, dirt, and grease as well as any loose paint or surface aberrations like nails will keep the wallpaper from adhering the way you want it to. Once you've scrubbed things down, coating the wall with a primer-sealer gives you the perfect surface - blocking wallpaper paste from being absorbed into the wall itself and roughing up smooth satin or semi-gloss paints so the wallpaper has a good surface to stick to. If you've already got wallpaper, remove it.
Wallpaper Tidbit #2 - Trim Comes First
If you want to paint the trim, do it before you paper. It's cake to put wallpaper over stray paint. It's a disaster trying to get the stray paint off wallpaper.
Wallpaper Tidbit #3 - Alignment is Everything
A chalk line, straightedge, or level will save you the deflation of thinking you're all done with a gorgeous job only to step back and see that your gorgeous job is in fact a crooked mess. Mark vertical lines on the walls before you start to avoid heartbreak.
Wallpapering isn't quite as easy as, voila, gorgeous walls, but when another case of "Headache Yellow" arises, I think I just may reach for the wallpaper.
About the Author
Dawn West teaches writing at Oregon State University. Her previous experience includes working for the Community Development Venture Capital Alliance, a not-for-profit in New York City, and serving as the director for several educational programs for at-risk youth in Boston. Charity holds a B.A. in English from Harvard University.
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