TYPES OF WALLCOVERINGS

     In this section the different types of wallcoverings are discussed individually.  The characteristics and hanging behaviors of each product is covered in detail.  As you will be able to discern, some of these materials are considerably harder to install than others.  But let's start with an easy one and work our way toward the more difficult ones.

"Catch-22"

     Some manufacturers state in their instructions to NOT paste their product.  If you do, you lose your warranty.  If you don't you can't hang it.  That's Catch 22 (Joseph Heller, Crown Publishers).  Your option in this situation is to either return the product or paste it and take your chances.

     If you really love the pattern, hang two strips using a top quality paste and leave it for two or three days and see what happens.  Most of the time it will turn out fine.  If you can live without the pattern, take it back for an exchange.  After all, a prepasted paper that won't hang by its own instructions is a defective product.

     Some prepasteds are thin and delicate requiring careful cutting and trimming.  You should use new razors to do all your cutting and change them often.  A dull blade can cause a large tear in a flash.  Holding the paper down firmly with a broad knife will help to prevent tearing and so will leaning the razor angle down to a narrow angle.

     Generally speaking, prepasteds are a very forgiving product.  You can leave small bubbles and they will dry flat.  You can even pull back a strip while it is wet and scrape off a bump that you missed.

     As you work with the first few strips of any wallcovering pay close attention to the handling characteristics and adjust to what the material needs.

Remember:   The wallcovering is not going to change to suit you; you must change to suit the demands of the wallcovering.

UNPASTED PAPERS

      Years ago unpasted papers were the only mass-produced wallcovering available.  The rich, of course, could get handmade leather and fabrics for their walls.  But if you were poor, you had to settle for the cheapest wallcovering of all - - newspapers soaked in flour and water and stuck over the plank walls to keep out the cold.

     Before plaster walls came along, you had to stretch large sheets of cheesecloth over your plank walls and nail it up with tacks.  You could then hang your wallpaper over this with a wheat paste.  Strange as it may seem, when dry, the paper looked like it was hung on plaster or sheetrock.  Of course, you couldn't do any cutting so you had to pre-trim all your pieces, lap the seams and put up borders where the wallpaper met the ceiling paper.  Even after plaster walls became the standard, wallpapers were still made to be lapped at the seams.

     Modern wallpapers have intricate designs and are frequently made of delicate paper.  You never lap the seams on today's papers and sometimes you even have to make your own seams by cutting off the selvages (excess paper on the edges of the pattern).

     Some papers work well with wheat paste and some do better with a cellulose (wood-based) paste.  The advantage to cellulose wallpaper paste is that it is non-staining.  Wheat paste, on the other hand, costs less.

     Never use a vinyl paste to install paper.  These pastes are just too strong.  Some delicate papers will nearly dissolve in vinyl paste.

VINYLS

     Unpasted vinyls can have cloth, paper, or even synthetic backings.  Some of them will hang with an inexpensive powdered vinyl paste and others require a ready-mixed, heavy-duty paste.

     Most of the unpasted vinyls that you will encounter will be 27-8" wide cloth or paper backing.  If your vinyl is cloth-backed, you can install it with clay-based, heavy-duty-clear, or even the less expensive powdered vinyl pastes.  Paper-backed vinyls, on the other hand, install better with ready-mixed vinyl pastes.

     Cloth-backed vinyls are very durable and will strip clean from a well-prepared wall.  Paper-backed vinyls are almost as tough, but when you strip them, the paper backing stays on the wall and the plastic face pulls off.  This kind of vinyl is called a peelable vinyl.

     In most cases you will not be able to install over this backing paper without getting a lot of bubbles and seam ridges showing through (even if you size it).  The safe bet is to strip the backing paper with a chemical stripper.

     For the most part, paper-backed vinyls are harder to install than cloth-backed.  This is because cloth-backed vinyls do not curl at the edges and are fairly consistent (except for some possible stretching) in their behavior.

     Because paper is a 'foreign' substance that is bonded to the vinyl, it creates behavior problems.  The most common problem is curling at the seams.

     Paper is a porous product and vinyl is not.  When the paper backing is pasted it absorbs the water and expands.  The vinyl tries to accommodate this expansion by curling (to give the paper more surface than it really has).

     Most of the time this curling effect will relax with drying and you will have a flat installation.   Long 'book' times may relax the curl in some products, while others may require re-pasting at the seams.

     If your seams curl with more paste, it is because the paper backing is absorbing more water.  Just put the pasted strip in a trash bag and let it book for several minutes.  The curl should relax in ten to twenty minutes at the most.  You could also use a blow dryer to speed the evaporation and drying time in conjunction with a seam roller.  (See, there's another 'hot' tip!)

SCREEN-PRINTS

     Wallcoverings that are printed from a handmade design on a screen are called 'screen-prints'.  Because this process lends itself to more artistic use of color and design, it produces some of the most beautiful (and expensive) wallcoverings.

     Screen-print customers are always surprised when they discover that their patterns do not match up exactly.  Artistic beauty, and not technical perfection, is the goal of screen-printing.  It is quite common for screen-prints to be off their pattern match by an eight of an inch.  It is a compromise that you must be willing to make for many of these products.

     You will also notice that your screen prints have 'extra' paper at the edges.  This is called selvage/selvedge.  Selvage will usually have arrows showing which way is up, the name of the pattern, the designer, and the company.

     More important for you are the little horizontal arrows that are beside the word 'join'.  This is the match indicator that shows you where the pattern should come together at the seams.  The join arrow will also show you whether you have a straight or drop match.

     The word 'trim' will be printed on a dark line at the edge of the pattern on each selvage. You should cut your selvage off just inside these trim guides.  Be sure you get all of the dark line with the cut and make your cuts as long and straight as possible.  If you have a foil or a delicate material, you will need to place the straight edge to the outside of the strip so that it will not leave crease marks when you press it down to trim the selvage off.

GRASSCLOTH

     Grasscloth is a great wallcovering because it hides wall problems and goes with practically everything.  Contrary to what many people think, grasscloth does not take more skill to install.  It takes more knowledge.  As a matter of fact, on walls without outside corners to go around, grass is easy.

     Basically, grass is natural stems and reeds that are attached to a paper backing.  Some are sewn to colored paper, some are dyed afterwards, and some are woven together.  The most popular type of grass is sewn on paper in horizontal rows.

     Grasscloth usually comes in 3' x 24' double rolls.  This is efficient packaging for you if you have the standard eight feet high ceilings.  You will get three strips that will cover a nine feet wide wall.  Most grass has no pattern to match up so you don't have much waste.  That's the good news.

     The bad news is that grass can have a very high waste factor if your walls are over eight feet high.  For walls over eight feet you must figure a single roll for each long strip you will need.  If your walls are over twelve feet high, you must figure a double roll for each long strip.  In these situations the waste factor can be a budget breaker.  Figure carefully.

     The trick to a good grass installation is to size and hang with the same non-staining cellulose wallpaper adhesive.  This allows the wide strips to move easily on the wall and you don't have to worry about getting paste on the surface.

     Don't be stingy with the paste and keep the book time under five minutes.  If allowed to soak too long, grass will separate from its backing.  In dry heat or summer, forget the book time.  Lightly pasted grass will bond to itself in just a few minutes under these conditions.

     You can smooth down grasscloth with a longhaired smoothing brush and long downward strokes.  Some grasses need the vertical smoothing to keep the bubbles down.  Remember to make all your cuts with sharp razors too.  Grass will not tolerate a dull blade.

     Unless you have a grasscloth that is dyed after the manufacture, you are going to have a variety of color, even on the same roll.  You may be surprised to see how many shades and tones there can be on one roll.

      If your grass is one of the heavily shaded types, don't expect your seams to blend.  They will stand out prominently.  The manufacturers call this 'intrinsic beauty'.  There is a lot of intrinsic beauty going around in wallcovering manufacturing.  Some of it even looks like flaws.  There are grasscloths available that are consistent in color and blend at the seams, but you will have to shop with those characteristics in mind.

      You can reduce the impact of shading by matching up similar colors.  To do this you have to unroll your grass and spread it out over a large open floor.  By visual comparison you can determine which rolls and parts of rolls will go side by side on the same wall with minimum color variation.  Cut these sections out and put them on the same wall together.  It takes more material to do this, but it can get you a more even look.

     Another way to reduce the impact of shading is called 'balancing' or 'paneling'.  The point of balancing is to place the seams symmetrically on the wall.  Since we can't hide the seams, we can at least make them logical to the eye.   The simplest way to do this is to start in the middle of the wall and work to the corners.  This also makes it very easy to center your art and furniture.

     You can also 'balance' by pre-cutting.  If you have a wall ten feet wide, you can avoid having three strips that are three feet wide and one strip that is one foot wide on the same wall by cutting six inches off of four strips.  This will give you four evenly placed strips of two and one half feet.

     If you get paste on the face of your grasscloth, leave it.  Sponging the surface is likely to make the grass separate from the wall.  Be careful when washing the ceiling and trim as well.  Wet grass will curl up.  Small areas of non-staining paste will not show when dry anyway.

     Don't roll the seams either.  Press them down with your fingers and a dry cloth.
Many of the newer grasscloth wallcoverings have a heavy white paper backing.  This product requires a heavy-duty clear adhesive and careful handling.  Some of these grasscloths are not colorfast and may stain at the slightest tough.  Leave these products to the professional installer.

STRINGCLOTH

    Stringcloth is a combination of paper and textile.  Dozens of strings, sometimes the size of fuzzy twine, are applied to the surface of the paper in vertical rows.  Sometimes the strings are so close together you barely see the paper.

     You can get stringcloth in a variety of colors and patterns.  The stringcloth look is frequently more delicate and formal than grasscloth.  It holds one particularly nice feature over grass - - it is seamless.   With proper installation 'strings' show no seams after drying.

     Stringcloth installs very much like grasscloth.  The packaging is 36" x 24' and the same non-staining cellulose wallpaper paste will do the job.  String is also like grass in that it will curl up from the edges if you get it wet on the surface.  Again, sharp razors are a must.  Those strings will pull off if jerked by a dull blade.

     There are many textile products that resemble stringcloth.  Textiles are heavier than stringcloth, they may be less than 36" wide, and they are available in the darker colors.  Do not confuse these products with paper-backed stringcloth.

     Textiles are much more difficult to install.  You must be capable of hanging textile without getting one drop of paste or water on the surface.  Otherwise you will have permanent stains.  You should leave textiles, especially the dark ones, to the experienced professionals.

FOIL

     Foil is one of the most difficult wallcoverings to install.  It requires knowledge, skill, patience, and fanatically meticulous wall preparation.  It is not an amateur product.

     For those of you who think you can meet these standards and have several rooms of paperhanging experience behind you - - read on.  This could be your ultimate masochistic experience.

     Foil is a thin layer of metal bonded to a thin layer of paper.  Its worst characteristic is that it bonds to the wall so tight that every detail of the wall surface will show through.  It is a completely unforgiving product.  The simpler the design and the more mirror-like the foil, the more detail shows.

     Its second worst characteristic is that it is inflexible.  Foil, especially the mirror foils, will not tolerate casual handling.  And third, you can't paste foil - - you have to paste the wall.

     You would think these three characteristics would stop everyone from trying to install foil.  But that is hardly the case.  Foil can give you a look that no other product can match.  For you (and thousands of others) it may be the one you must have.

     Wall preparation is the key to a good-looking finish on your foil.  You can install a liner to help hide the imperfections of your walls, but nothing is better than a smooth surface.

     Foil is also one of the most inflexible wallcoverings made.  Never try to force it to go in a direction it does not want to.  If you do, it will leave scars on the surface.

     Foil cannot be pasted like ordinary wallpaper.  You have to paste the wall.  If you paste the foil, the paper backing will separate from the metal face.  You have to use a heavy-duty, ready-mixed vinyl paste (preferably clay-based).  You should paste the wall as carefully as you would the foil.  Lay it on as evenly as possible and let it start to dry before you put your strip in place.  This drying time will increase the 'tack' of your paste by reducing its water content (some of it will soak into the wall and some of it will evaporate).   You will have less of a curling problem at the seams with drier paste.

     Since you have to paste the wall and not the paper, it is important that you have the strips cut right before you get to the wall.  You should measure and plot your 'strip strategy' beforehand so that you will know where each piece will go.  Once you have the room figured out, it will be easy to pre-cut each strip to within an inch of its exact placement.

     If you are going to start from a plumb line, mark it before you paste the wall.  You will still be able to see the line through the paste.  Take your strip to the wall and place it exactly where you want it to go - - the very first time.  Be precise in your placement.  Foil is not a product that you want to slide around on the wall.

     Once a foil strip has set on the wall for a minute and the backing paper has soaked up some paste, it should not be moved (except to take down and replace).  Think of foil as a computer punch card - - do not bend, fold, or mutilate.

     Unless you own an animal hair smoothing brush, use sponges, rags, and your hands to smooth down the foil.  Even longhaired plastic smoothing brushes will scratch some foils.  You can smooth out bubbles by wrapping a wet linen rag around your broad knife and drawing the blade across the bubbles.  Never push with the forward edge of the blade.  If it hits a bump, it will tear a hole in the foil.  Wash the face of the foil and wipe it dry with clean rags.  If you don't you will have water spots.

     When you get to an electrical device, use your wooden-handle razor-knife to do the cutting.  If you stick your knife into a switch, it will only kick the breaker and melt the razor, not you.  Besides, 'electrical break dancing' is hard on the nerves.  Don't be sloppy about washing around the outlets either.  Foil is an excellent conductor.

     Mylar is a product that is often mistaken for foil.  Mylars are easier to install than foil if they have the fabric or synthetic backings.  These backings can be pasted and will not crease easily.  Mylars still require the heavy-duty pastes though because they are heavier than foil.  Paper-backed mylars, unfortunately, install much like foil.

     If you plan to install more than one room in foil hire and established pro and watch the expert do it the first time.  You'll have one room done right and free lessons as well.  Foil is not a wallcovering for the uninitiated.

FABRICS

     In some parts of the country fabrics are very popular.  They are especially nice if you want to coordinate your walls to other fabrics in a room.  You can install your fabric yourself, but you will need some help.

     Fabric is not a one-person job because it is packaged in 45 to 54 inch wide bolts. This makes it much harder to handle on the wall than strips of wallpaper.  I recommend that you have your fabric mounted on a backing paper or at least sized before you try to install it.  This procedure will make the installation much easier.

     Cut your panels of fabric a few inches longer at the top and bottom than you will actually need.  Fold the panel top to bottom and using a straight edge trim off the selvage at the sides.  Don't worry; this is not the final seam.

     Pay close attention to possible shading effects in the fabric.  This is likely in single odd panels to get the colors to blend together at the seams.  You must cut and hang each strip you will need from the bolt in sequence.  This will put the colors that are the closest on the bolt next to each other and reduce shading.

     If you have more than one bolt and it is not numbered in sequence, you must make sure that you have enough of each bolt to do an entire wall from inside corner to inside corner.  You can start another bolt from an inside corner and it will not show the color change (just as if you had to use another run in wallpaper).

     Before you begin, mark your plumb line one panel width out from the starting point.  Now paste the wall just like you would for foil only apply the paste a little thicker.  Apply a heavy-duty, non-staining, pre-mixed adhesive with a paint roller and a brush.  Let the paste stand for a few minutes before you take your fabric to the wall.  This will give it more 'tack'.
   
     With your helper holding the top of the other end of the strip, place it on the plumb line and smooth it down with a smoothing brush.  As you will notice, fabric is very flexible.  You will have to be careful to line up the grain of the fabric or you will get waves in the weave and possibly the pattern itself.

     You may have to pin, tape, or paste the top excess to the ceiling to keep it from falling and pulling the strip off the wall.  This is fine, but DO NOT cut this excess off yet.  The same goes for the bottom.  Do not trim the excess off yet.

     A common characteristic of fabrics is that they shrink from the top to the bottom.  Ironically, it is rare for them to shrink away at the seams, but they routinely shrink at the top and bottom cuts.  You are going to avoid this problem by letting the fabric get nearly dry on the wall before you trim off the top and bottom excess.  Even if the product claims to be 'preshrunk', 'sanforized', or anything else, let it stand on the wall for 20-30 minutes before trimming.

     While this strip is drying you can cut and trim your next panel and paste the wall for it.  Before you apply the second panel, trim the top of the first strip and wait for 10-15 minutes.

     What you are waiting for is shrinkage.  Watch closely and make sure the fabric is dry enough to keep from shrinking back.  If you do see shrinking back, wait another ten minutes and see just how much there is going to be.  Anything over ¼" is too much.  You are OK because you still have some excess at the bottom and you can re-hang the piece and just wait a little longer to trim it.  If it doesn't move at all after 15 minutes, it's probably safe to go ahead and cut the bottom excess.

     When you take your second strip to the wall you want to overlap the seams by two inches.  You could try to butt the seams, but I think you will find that you can get a much better seam by lapping and splicing.  Splicing is most commonly known as the 'double-cut'.  What you want to do is to place the straight edge in the middle of your seam and make a vertical cut with a new razor through both layers of the fabric.  Let your helper hold the straight edge in place firmly so you can get a smooth cut.  The top piece of the cut will fall away and there will be another thin strip about the same size for you to pull out from under.

     Now you should have a perfectly butted seam.  Fit them together and push them down with your hands.  Do not sponge the surface of the fabric or it will stain and shrink.  Don't use a seam roller because it will press the paste through the fabric.  If you get some paste on the surface, leave it until it dries.  Once dry, you should be able to brush it off with a stiff brush (if it shows) without upsetting the fabric.  Repeat this process until you get the room done.  If you must stop, try to make it in the corners.

     Fabrics require great patience, dexterity and expertise beyond simple wallpapers.  They can be a challenging installation even for professionals.

MURALS

     Murals can be easier to install than most wallcoverings.  That's because they are usually hung on just one large wall with no doors or windows to go around.  Most mural makers provide good instructions (some even give you the paste), but some elaboration here will make your task easier.

     Before you begin any mural project, lay out the mural on a large open floor.  You will probably    need weights to keep it from rolling back up, but it is important that you be able to see the entire mural as it will look on the wall.

     Be sure you have the right mural with all the correct panels (they should be number-coded) and that there are no flaws in the mural.  Minor shading from one panel to the next (especially if there is a sky) is to be expected in photomurals.  Many shops will exchange murals that have unacceptable flaws or shading, but the burden and responsibility for inspecting wallcoverings is totally the buyers.  Once you have cut one panel, the mural is not returnable.

     The key to a good mural installation is proper placement and double-cutting.  For a mural to look right you have to center it on the wall.  This requires that you find the exact center of your wall and begin with the axis of your mural at that point.  Remember, too, that mural panels have to be vertically and horizontally correct to prevent a mismatch on the outer panels.  Never install a mural from one side to the other.  You are much less likely to lose your plumb and vertical lines, and therefore your match, by starting in the center.

     To insure that it looks like one-whole-picture you must double-cut the seams so that they are nearly invisible.  Most murals, especially photographic ones, are made with selvage.  This means you will have to lap the seams to get the pattern to match correctly.  Some manufacturers use small red crosses as match-point indicators.  These are not always exact, so use your own best judgment.

     When you have all 6 or 8 panels of your mural up, you are ready to double-cut the selvages (under hot and dry conditions you may have to splice the lapped seams as you go rather than waiting until you have all the panels installed).   To do this you will need a long straightedge - - preferably six or seven feet long.

     You will need a helper or two to hold the straight edge in place while you cut through the middle of your lapped seams.  Press firmly with the razor so that you get a clean cut through both layers of the selvage.  Once the cut is made, remove the top selvage and pull out the 'under-selvage'.

     If the new butt edges you have just made are dry, re-paste them and smooth them down.  This should leave you with near invisible seams and a mural that looks like 'one-whole-picture'.

OTHER MATERIALS

     There is practically no end to the variety of materials that you can cover your walls with.  At one time burlap was popular, and then cork, and then flocks, and so on.  Some people carpet their walls and others will install bamboo.  I have even heard of people covering their walls with money.  (I just hope they call me when they are ready to strip it.)

     Each year I see more and more exotic material being introduced into the market place.  There are some unbelievably beautiful things that can be put on walls these days.  This, of course, presents some fantastic opportunities for you.

     I realize that you will be tempted to spend your entire decorating budget on an expensive wallcovering and then try to install it yourself.  I do not recommend that you try it.  Hire an established professional.

     I also know that some of you have some paperhanging experience under your belt and will be confident enough to ignore this advice.  If you must, try installing a little of the product and see how it goes.  There is no shame in messing up a roll or two and discovering you're not as good as you thought you were.  This way you can keep your loss to a minimum.

     Seek out information on your product from dealers and paperhangers.  Some exotic materials are not packaged with instructions so you may have to contact the manufacturer to find out what paste to use and how to install it.  Doing your homework always pays off.