How to paste wallpaper without helpers: tips from the master

Recommendation points

• List of required tools
• A few words about surface preparation
• Pattern fitting, marking and storing of strips
• Markup. Let’s say to a plumb line – no
• Glue application, impregnation and strip gluing
• Sockets and switches – to remove or not to remove
• How to properly trim excess
• Heating radiators – ways to get around a sore spot
• Some helpful tips

Very often you can see how two people waste precious time, wallpapering one room. One of them, as a rule, is engaged in glueing the strip with glue and giving it to a partner who has been idle on the scaffold all this time. Then they swap places. While the second adjusts the strip in place, the first contemplates the process and gives “valuable” advice. Then they swear and the pasting is postponed to another day..

However, all wallpaper work can be performed by one person, without a partner. Moreover, labor productivity increases significantly. It is enough just to master a few techniques and abandon the stamps, many of which are more than one hundred years old..

List of required tools

To work productively with wallpaper, you need to replenish your tool arsenal. Here is a complete list of what is required for this:

1. Light stepladder.
2. Clean plastic glue bucket.
3. Glue tray.
4. Paint roller with medium fur, 250 mm wide.
5. Flat brush at least 50 mm wide.
6. Wallpaper ruler.
7. Wallpaper knife and a set of spare blades for it at the rate of – 1 package per room.
8. Scissors.
9. Roulette and pencil.
10. Water or laser two-plane self-leveling level.
11. Wallpaper brush (if the selected wallpaper requires careful handling when smoothing).
12. Rubber upholstery roller (wide, for smoothing fabrics).
13. Seam rubber roller (suitable for most types of wallpaper).
14. Plastic conical ribbed joint roller (suitable for heavy wallpapers with special manufacturer’s instructions).
15. Plastic wallpaper spatula (for smooth wallpaper, you can use it instead of a rubber roller, and when working with the rest of the wallpaper, it is convenient for them to press the wallpaper in the corners).
16. Cardboard or thick construction film wider than the wallpaper.
17. Sponge and gauze to remove excess glue.
18. Pliers, screwdriver, electrical tape.

A few words about surface preparation

Not so long ago, the attitude towards wallpaper could be characterized by the phrase: “Stick it up so that it is clean and the terrible walls are not visible!” In the modern sense, the place of wallpaper in the interior is much wider. Therefore, there must be a reliable, even and clean surface under the wallpaper. These requirements are met by high-quality plaster, putty in several layers with intermediate grinding and priming of each layer. Such a surface does not require large-scale repairs in the future and can withstand repeated wallpaper re-gluing during subsequent cosmetic repairs..

There are wallpapers that can be removed without residue. These, for example, include all types of non-woven wallpaper. All types of vinyl wallpaper (this is the most common class of decorative wall coverings on the market) have a peel-off backing that stays on the wall and serves as a ready base for other wallpapers. Therefore, the requirement for high strength of plaster and putty layers is relevant. The base should not fall off along with the wallpaper when it is subsequently removed.

You can check the surface quality by scratching the wall crosswise in an inconspicuous place with a hard sharp object. If the crosshair does not chip, then the surface is solid.

Pattern fitting, marking and storing of strips

The bulk of the wallpaper is produced with a pattern. The larger it is, the greater its step (rapport), the more waste will be during work. The first technological step when working with wallpaper – fitting according to the pattern, marking and storing strips.

Roll out two rolls on a clean floor. The one on the left in the photo has already been cut in length according to the desired height with a margin of at least 10 cm from this size. The second roll is aligned with the drawing on the first page and marks are placed along its edges with a pencil. You can cut these places with scissors.

In order not to fiddle with a square and a ruler, it is enough to align the strip of wallpaper along the edges in the place where the cut was made, and press down the fold with your hands.

Then you need to cut off the rest of the wallpaper roll from the canvas with scissors. Don’t worry about an uneven edge. After all, the length margin is intended for this, so that after gluing the strip on the wall, cut off the excess in place with high accuracy already under the ruler.

In the meantime, the previous lane is no longer required. On its reverse side, you need to mark the direction where the top will be with an arrow, number and roll the base outward. The roll must be placed vertically against the wall on which it will be glued in the future.

The next canvas is marked and stored in the order indicated above. With this method of preparing and storing the cuts ready for gluing, you can straighten the wallpaper without taking up space in the room..

Typically, the cut strips are spread face down on top of each other and the adhesive is applied to the top strip in the stack. In this case, the edges of the lower cuts are damaged, which significantly reduces the quality of work.

Markup. Let’s say to a plumb line – no

The next stage of work is the marking of the walls in accordance with the plan. Almost all wallpapering guides recommend using a plumb line. Stone Age! There is not a single professional who uses this device. For marking vertical and horizontal lines, either a water level or a laser level is used. Mark the position of the stripes first from the corners (vertical lines), the position of the border on the wall or the place of transition from one wallpaper to another (horizontal level).

When drawing a line with a pencil, you do not need to draw it with effort. It is enough just to outline with a dotted line. If the line is left solid, then under the transparent non-woven wallpaper it will be visible even after two layers of paint, while other wallpapers can be stained with graphite dust. It is important to make a small tolerance in width. Let’s say the width of the wallpaper is 53 cm.Then the vertical line must be diverted, stepping back at least 54 cm from the corner, placing the edge parallel to the marking line, there is less chance of deviating from it than by running the wallpaper directly along it.

Glue application, impregnation and strip gluing

After all the preparatory stages are completed, you can proceed to the direct pasting of the room. By that time, all stripes will straighten. The glue must be diluted before starting work, following the manufacturer’s recommendations. Here one rule common to all can be noted: the water must be clean and cold, and the glue must be poured into the water in a thin stream with continuous stirring. Do not mix two packs of glue at once. It thickens quickly and lumps begin to form. The type of glue must match the type of wallpaper.

The strip must be rolled out on cardboard or foil. Pour some of the glue into a cuvette, dip a roller in it and apply to the wallpaper. It is important to grease the edges well. An indicator adhesive is ideal for this. Nothing bad will happen if the roller goes over the edge of the canvas. Fresh glue can be easily removed with a damp sponge or gauze. The adhesive layer to be applied should be uniform, but not thick..

Immediately after applying the glue, the wallpaper must be folded, as shown in the photo, and left to soak for three to five minutes. If the next strip of wallpaper passes along a flat wall without obstacles, then you can miss the next section and also fold it. But you should not leave more than three strips for impregnation – they will begin to stick together.

The strip impregnated with glue must be turned around by climbing onto the stairs. Find the top according to the mark and attach it to the wall, making an overlap on the ceiling (the amount of overlap should be greater than the total slope of the floors, which in some houses can reach 10 cm).

First, the upper half of the panel is glued and adjusted according to the pattern. After that, you need to go down the stairs and unfold the second half of the wallpaper, adjust it end-to-end and start smoothing with a wide rubber roller (wallpaper spatula or wallpaper brush, depending on the type of wallpaper), starting from the middle and top, ending with the edges and bottom, squeezing all the air out.

Immediately after this, the joint is rolled with a narrow rubber roller. The seams must not be pushed strongly and rubbed with a rag. Excess glue should be blotted with a sponge and washed immediately in running water..

The less attention is focused on the seams, the less they will stand out after drying.

Sockets and switches – to remove or not to remove

The answer is unequivocal – to shoot! There are several reasons. First, the electrical fittings are sometimes replaced, and another model of the outlet or switch may have different dimensions. Is it good if they are big, and if not? Secondly, the rosette installed over the wallpaper looks much better than the one cut along the contour..

In many guides, it is advised to cut through the wallpaper in the place where the box is installed crosswise, and bend the resulting sectors inward and glue it. Not the best option in terms of fire safety. It’s better to cut the middle out of the box right away.

This must be done while the wallpaper is damp, as it tends to stretch as it dries and then it is difficult to find the place where the mounting box is. Naturally, when dismantling the electrical fittings, you need to de-energize the room, and insulate the bare wires and put them inside the box..

How to properly trim excess

One of the main tools in upholstery is a flexible ruler. It is arranged simply: in a plastic case 60 cm long, a strip of flexible stainless steel is sealed. The ruler is able to snuggle tightly even to uneven surfaces, accurately repeating all their bends. The photo shows how to use it.

It is important to remember that after each cut, you need to break off the tip of the blade at the wallpaper knife so that it is always sharp. The savings here are completely unjustified. After the excess is removed, you need to wipe the surface with a damp sponge.

Despite the fact that the wallpaper is damp, the cut remains clean, without scoring and lint. It is impossible to do this kind of work accurately without a wallpaper ruler..

Heating radiators – ways to get around a sore spot

Any master, regardless of qualifications, does not really like heating radiators. In terms of complexity and meticulousness, this warm place in an apartment when wallpapering is the greatest difficulty. New buildings have batteries that can be easily removed and installed back. When dismantling the radiator, only wall mounts and floor bends remain from it, to which it is connected via quick-release couplings (so-called American).

With this method of pasting the surface behind the radiator, little time and nerves are spent. Much more of it will be required to first remove and then replace the battery. Before unscrewing the nuts of the “American women”, you need to turn off the taps on the supply and return of the radiator and drain the water, having previously reduced the pressure by unscrewing the locking screw on the drain valve.

If it is not possible to remove the radiator, then it is enough to start strips of wallpaper around its perimeter to a depth of about 15 cm on each side. It is recommended to additionally coat the wall surface behind the battery with glue, especially if it works.

Some helpful tips

To quickly and accurately perform wallpaper work without an assistant, you should use a few useful tips:

1. Use only a stepladder. “Goats” and scaffolds are bulky, they can easily damage walls.
2. When working with non-woven wallpaper or fiberglass, there is no need to cut and adjust the stripes in advance. It is possible to paste from a roll, as the glue for these types of wallpaper is applied to the wall.
3. In order for the edge of the wallpaper running along the slopes to be neat, you need to make a small overlap (1-2 cm), wait until the wallpaper is dry, and then cut off the excess with a sharp wallpaper knife.
4. You should not dock the wallpaper strictly in the corners. It is better to make the transition from one plane to another by an amount exceeding the deviation of the wall from the vertical, and stick the next wallpaper sheet by level, making an overlap on the previous strip, cut both canvases under the ruler, and remove the excess.
5. All types of flooring, except for parquet and tiles, are laid after wallpapering.
6. If parquet is laid on the floor, then before wallpapering it must be covered with two or three layers of thick cardboard. It is impossible to cover the parquet with a film.!
7. Hands must be clean. After each glued panel, wipe them with damp gauze, which rinse periodically.