Decorating the hallway with decorative stone and wallpaper

Recommendation points

• What materials will be needed
• Where the stone will look appropriate
• Preparation of surfaces for finishing
• Wallpaper sticker
• Stone cladding

One of the most beneficial stylistic solutions is the combination of wallpaper and stone cladding. This combination of materials favorably emphasizes the geometry of the room, has a rich and sophisticated appearance. We will tell you in what sequence to carry out the work, and what are the features at each stage.

What materials will be needed

There are many varieties of decorative stone for interior work, some of which require the use of a special type of glue. And despite the fact that the surface of the walls can be represented by different materials – from OSB to ordinary plaster – you should take care of the correct choice of a binder in advance in order to ensure the highest quality and durable result of the combined finish.

For plaster decors, a special stucco adhesive is ideal. You will also need a high-quality primer, because the back of the gypsum stone is very dusty, it needs to be impregnated to obtain the best adhesion. Due to the low weight, this finish does not require high adhesive strength, but the quality of the adhesion should be very good..

Artificial sand concrete stone can be laid on a regular cement mortar. The main role in the choice of glue is played by the base material – for laying on drywall it is better to use tile glue, it is better to glue such a stone on wooden surfaces using liquid nails.

Limestone, sandstone, tuff and other sedimentary rocks have a fairly high porosity and, at the same time, practically do not generate dust. They can be easily glued to almost any type of adhesive, including Perlfix gypsum. In turn, natural igneous rock, such as basalt or granite, has low porosity and therefore requires laying on a special polymer glue for the stone..

Also, do not forget that the front surface of the stone will eventually have to be treated with a water repellent compound. It can be either antistatic water-repellent impregnation or ordinary varnish for interior work..

Where the stone will look appropriate

Since we have touched on the theme of finishing the hallway, it is worth briefly mentioning the basic rules of interior design for this kind of premises. As a decorative element, stone is used mainly for contouring portals, door slopes and niches.

For small rooms, decorating the entire plane of the walls with a stone will be a losing option. In this case, the hallway will be very squeezed and gloomy. But if you use pastel-colored wallpaper with a slightly pronounced texture, the stone will be quite an appropriate accessory.

Stone decors can be used to add variety to walls of considerable length and height. It is not worth laying out panels with a stone near the floor and ceiling, so it will not work to ensure the correct abutment of the plinth and moldings. You can lay out with a stone pilasters, rustic outer corners. It would also be appropriate to look at a stone frieze along the entire wall at a level of 90-120 cm from the floor.

Framing panels, mirrors and areas covered with photo wallpaper is considered to be a particularly effective technique. In the hallway, the opening of the entrance door is traditionally framed with stone: with a light tone of the main finish, a modest single-row stone cladding on the inside of the slope will be appropriate, for more spacious rooms with a rich wallpaper color, a full frame with a stone casing is well suited.

Preparation of surfaces for finishing

Typically, stone-faced areas form a ragged edge. To avoid the difficulties with cutting wallpaper, it is better to glue them first, and then finish with a stone with a slight overlap on the paper. To do this, you must first draw on the wall the contours of the areas for finishing with stone and apply the second contour line with an inward indent of about 10–20 mm.

Due to the different finishing techniques with stone and wallpaper, the preparation of the walls may have some differences. It is recommended to apply a layer of finishing gypsum putty of the order of 1–1.5 mm under the wallpaper to create a dense and strong crust with good adhesion to paper glue. The boundary of the coating with putty is the outer contour of the areas with a stone – the spatula is placed along this line and stretches in the opposite direction. Subsequently, the plastered walls are rubbed with an abrasive mesh and opened with deeply penetrating soil, thereby dedusting and hardening the surface, as well as facilitating the removal of wallpaper during the next repair.

It is not necessary and even harmful to putty the areas on which the stone will be glued. In order for the finish to hold for a long time and confidently, you should ensure the minimum thickness of the glue line and as few preparatory layers as possible. Thus, the stone must be glued directly to the supporting layer of the wall; a layer of leveling plaster is allowed. Mandatory impregnation with reinforcing primer for concrete surfaces.

Wallpaper sticker

There are no special differences in the technique of wallpapering. The main finishing can be done in advance, but the starting canvas is always located close to the stone decor. It is necessary to beat off the starting line with a plumb line so that the width of one canvas is enough to cover the torn edge. The main highlight of such a combined finish lies in trimming the edges of the canvas along the contour of the internal marking.

The most suitable type of wallpaper will be those that do not require glue impregnation and swelling, that is, non-woven and some types of vinyl. It is much easier to cut a dry canvas, so at first about half of the vertical strip is covered with glue, the wallpaper is applied and joined to the previous canvas. Further along the inner marked contour, the wallpaper must be carefully trimmed with scissors or a blade..

When the edge of the canvas exactly matches the markings, you need to turn it a little to the border with the glued half, cover the rest of the wall with glue, avoiding hitting the area set aside for the stone. When the glue is applied, turn the second edge of the canvas back into place, give a few minutes to shrink and smooth the canvas completely.

Stone cladding

To glue the stone, you should use high-quality glue, it is optimal if it is a commercial dry mix or a ready-mixed solution. In some cases, you can recommend plastic adhesives-sealants in tubes.

The technique of gluing a decorative stone is simple: the glue is first applied to the wall with a spatula with a fine comb (2–5 mm), then the back of the element is wiped. There is no need to apply glue on top of the wallpaper, so the stones remain unsticked about 15–20 mm from the edge. Each stone is pressed against the wall with significant force, aligned with adjacent elements to obtain a minimum joint width. Other cladding technique involves joining, in this case, a constant seam thickness is normalized between the stones with crosses, it is also possible to use a jointing strip or metallized tape.

For each decor element, a different sequence of filling the area for facing is preferable. So, for the slopes, it is better to take the door frame as a reference point and bring the ragged edge in the opposite direction. If the slope passes into the casing, the outer part of the corner is faced first. The stones adjacent to the corner are obliquely trimmed, after which the inner surfaces of the slope are lined.

For decors adjacent to the wallpaper on both sides, it is not necessary to follow a specific installation order. It is only important that several stones, protruding most strongly on each side, are laid strictly along one line, which will provide visual harmony to the decorative element. One key rule also applies: only vertical edges are left torn, while the horizontal boundaries of the stone cladding are predominantly straight.