Starting to make your wallpaper decisions

Do you want to paper the whole room or just one wall?

Does a chair rail or other decorative molding suggest the use of two papers rather than one? Would a border along the ceiling line work well?

Installed on just one wall, wallpaper lends color to the room and foreshortens it. You can even combine multiple wall coverings on a single wall if you use a chair rail or a border in between; if so, hang the darker, heavier pattern on the bottom.

Borders are an easy and relatively inexpensive way to lend elegance and charm to a room. You can combine a border with wallpaper or use it alone on a painted wall. Borders look great at the ceiling line just below a crown molding; where there's no molding, a border compensates for its lack.

A border at chair-rail height often lends a traditional feeling to a room. In tight quarters, however, a chair rail makes a room seem smaller.

If you have artwork on your walls, consider hanging a textile wall covering or a subtly striped one that won't detract from your art. Often, the use the room receives will suggest the best material for the wall covering.

For example, although most children's areas need only washable paper, a scrub able one will stand up better to rough treatment and thorough cleaning.

The material content of a wall covering is a determining factor not only in its durability and cleaning ability, but also in its appearance, cost, installation, and ease of removal.

The back of a wallpaper sample usually contains information on the wallpaper's content, whether it's washable or scrubable, and whether it can be stripped or peeled from the wall. You can also check there to learn the size of its pattern repeat.

Choosing the type of wallpaper to use

Vinyls are the most popular wallpapers especially for do it yourselfers. Vinyl's durability and strength make this wallpaper relatively easy to install and easy to keep clean.

Fabric-backed vinyl wallpaper has a vinyl top layer and an undersurface of fiberglass or cheesecloth. The sturdiest kind of wallpaper, fabric backed vinyl is washable and usually strippable. Compared with other papers, it's also more moisture resistant and less likely to tear if a wall cracks. Fabric backed usually comes un-pasted because it's often too heavy to roll well if pre-pasted.

Paper-backed vinyl has a vinyl top layer with a paper rather than fabric backing. This makes the wall covering lighter, so paper-backed vinyl comes pre-pasted. One special type of paper-backed vinyl is expanded vinyl, which has a three-dimensional effect.

It's often designed to look like another surface, such as rough plaster, granite, textured paint, or grass cloth. Such materials are especially suitable for walls that aren't perfectly smooth.

Foils
Because of their reflective quality, foils and other metallics can brighten up a small, dark space. However, they require an absolutely smooth wall surface and special installation, since they wrinkle easily. Most people have this work done professionally.