In every craft there are techniques that are special to that skill.  Paperhanging is no exception.  These 'tricks' are things that you would never know if you did not work in the trade and sometime are the most valuable information that you could possess.  I think you will find these tips as useful as I have.

COVERING SWITCH PLATES AND OUTLET COVERS

     Switch plates and outlet covers often look better if they are covered with the wallcovering.  This is especially true if you have a dark or bold print that makes the plates stand out.  Frequently kitchens will have more than a dozen of these plates and they can be very distracting in a well-decorated room.

     Plates will cover easily with vinyls and papers.  Some grass and string cloth will cover too, but you might need a stronger paste than the one you used to install the wallcovering.  If you cover your plates with a foil, be sure that no loose edges make contact in the wiring.  Also, heavy-duty wallcoverings might require that you use contact cement.  If the wallcovering just won't stick, put it on the plate dry and tape it down on the backside with a strong tape (e.g., duct tape).

     Covering your plates is a snap if you have a random match pattern.  Just draw the outline of the plate on the back of the wallcovering with a pencil.  Trace around the plate and dot the screw holes.  Now you can take a razor and cut out the openings.  Make an 'X' at the screw openings with your razor.  When you have that done you need to trim off the outer edges except for about an inch.  You want to have enough material to fold over and paste to the back of the plate without interfering with the openings.

     The last cut you will make is a 45 degree cut across each corner.  You should cut off each corner to within 1/8^th of an inch of the corners of the plate.  This will make it easy for the wallcovering to fold over to the back without wrinkling at the corners.  There are variations on this technique, but this is the fastest and easiest method I have encountered.

     If you need to match your plate to the wall pattern, you should paste the piece you are going to cover the plate with and place it over the plate on the wall.  When the piece is positioned to match the pattern, mark the screw holes with a sharp pencil and then take the piece and the plate to your cutting surface and repeat the cutting procedure.  You will find that you can even make minor adjustments by shifting the wallcovering and the plate to get a precise pattern match-up.

     Do not tighten the screws to the point of wrinkling the wallcovering around the screw holes.  Sponge the plate clean and 'Voila!'  You have both function and beauty.

SPOT REPAIRS

     Small gouges and tears can be repaired without replacing the whole sheet of wallcovering.  A seam roller, a broad knife, and some razors are the only tools you will need.  If you have a large hole to patch, cut the wallcovering away from it and do the spackling and sanding first.  Once the wall is repaired you are ready to patch.

     Cut out a piece of the pattern identical to the damaged area only make it a few inches larger.  Paste this piece with a tacky mix of paste and allow the piece to set for ten minutes.  After the patch has 'booked' lay it over the bad spot and match it to the pattern exactly.  Using your broad knife (to hold the patch in place) cut out around the damaged section.  A simple square cutout will do the job, but you might want to consider a more artistic approach.  Sometimes the patch will hide better if you cut along with the design of your pattern.

     Once you have made the cuts, take off the outside pieces of the patch and discard them.  Now remove the patch and set it aside.  Your next move is to take out the section of the wallcovering that is identical to the patch.  This should be easy since you have cut through both layers of the paper.   If the face of the paper peels off and the backing sticks to the wall, soak the backing with a sponge and some warm water.  It should come off after a few minutes of soaking.

     When you have a smooth clean area for your patch, lay it in and smooth it down.  Flatten the edges with your seam roller and sponge the area clean.  Once dry, you should have a nearly invisible patch.

SEAMS

     Sometimes, despite your best efforts, the seams still show.  This is usually caused by the seams opening up as they dry.  If there is a lot of contrast between the old wall color and the new wallcovering, the seams can really stand out.  White and most very light wallcoverings will show dark lines at the seams even if the seams are tight.  This is because light breaks at a seam and throws a shadow.  This 'seam shadow' is especially prominent when you look down the length of a wall (this is call cross lighting).

     If your seams are open because they are loose, re-paste them and let them soak a few minutes and press them back in place.  If they are not loose you can still remedy the situation with colors.  You can paint out your seams with artist's acrylics and make them virtually invisible.  You should try to mix the color as close as possible to the background color of your wallcovering.

     Paint the color in the seam with a #1 artist's brush and wipe off any paint that gets on the surface with a damp cloth.  With good color matching you can color out tears and even razor cuts that show around your patches.

     Be sure you have water-based paint.  Oil-based paints will permanently stain your wallcoverings.

PRE-CUTTING

     Pre-cutting is cutting all of your wallcovering before you install any of it.  Pre-cutting is much faster than cutting a strip at a time because you must figure how many strips and what size and where they are to go before you put up the first piece.

     Once you have figured the entire room you can install without guesswork.  The simplest way to plan for pre-cutting is to mark off your walls in strip widths.  These marks will show you the number, length, and placement of your strips.

     Pre-cutting is particularly handy for prepasteds because you can do all of your cutting on a dry table beforehand.  Cutting prepasteds on a wet table is considerably more troublesome.

INSPECTING

     One of the most expensive mistakes you can make is to assume that your wallcovering is just perfect.  Wallcovering manufacturers are very reasonable about replacing the small percentage of defective material that gets by their inspectors, but they limit their liability to just that.

     If you discover that your material is defective after you have put a day's work into your room, you have lost a day's work.  Professional paperhangers don't take chances and neither should you.

     Inspect each roll for matching pattern and run numbers.  Unroll each package and look for misprints, color spatters, wrinkles, and compare the rolls to each other for consistency of color and print.

     Do this as soon as you bring your wallcoverings home even though you may not plan to install them for weeks.  Wallcoverings is a timely business.  The faster you return flawed goods, the easier it is for the dealer to find your order number, and the more likely that their distributor can ship an immediate replacement.

BORDERS

     Borders are available on pre-pasted, pre-trimmed spools, unpasted spools with selvage, and on rolls just like wallpaper.  I call the pre-pasted and pre-trimmed spools 'ready-made' borders because they are ready to install just as they are.  The unpasted borders with selvage give you some flexibility because you can choose just how wide you want to trim them.  Some borders are printed like wallpaper with perforations between the rows so you don't even have to cut them.  Of course, you can always make a border out of a vertical or striped pattern wallcovering that you like.

     Ready-made borders are the easiest to install if you are going over wallpaper or good acrylic paint.  However, they do not stick well to semi-gloss enamels and vinyl wallcoverings.  Over these surfaces you will need to use a vinyl-over-vinyl adhesive to get the border to stay up permanently.

     Unpasted selvage borders should be cut to your wall length, pasted, booked, and trimmed with a straightedge.  These, too, will require the stronger vinyl-over-vinyl paste if you are putting them over vinyl wallcoverings.

     If your border comes on a perforated roll like wallpaper, paste the roll first and then separate your border strips.  Remember to cut your longest strips first so you don't have to assemble pieces across your wall.

     Always order more border than you think you will need.  The extra repeats will make it easier to match corners precisely and take a lot of the worry out of the job.

     You should install your border off of a walkboard just like you would for a ceiling.  If you do not have a walkboard, line up several chairs across the wall so that you do not have to jump up and down every few feet.

     Also, remember that border changes the part of your pattern that is at the top of the strips.  If you are hanging a border in conjunction with a wallcovering, you must drop the part of the pattern you want to be at the top of the strips the width of the border.  Otherwise, the border will cut through that part of the pattern that you wanted to show at the top of each strip.

     TIP: For very long walls, try folding your pasted border into accordion folds (like Christmas ribbon candy) for easier handling.

PASTES

BLOW DRYERS