New Rooms for the New Season

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22540, 3 October 1936, Page 6 (Supplement)

New Rooms for the New Season

HOW TO PAPER YOUR OWN WALLS T-TAVE you sometimes looked wistfully on tho samples and rolls of beautiful wallpapers in a shop, with a mental picture of your own shabby walls before you? You know you can afford the paper, but you can't , afford tho cost of a paperlianger. You' know that your suite would look twice as charming, double its value, against such a lovely background. . . "If I

could only hang it myself," run your thoughts, "I could make over my room." You can—and in the easiest manner possible. The old joke of getting tangled in the wallpaper and literally hanging oneself to the wall, or finishing up by decorating one's head with tho paste bucket can be given the go-by from to-

day. Here are some tips that will help to turn you into a veritable professional. First of all, the secret of successful paperhangiug lies in tho tools you use, and tho proper pasting of tho paper. Bo clean with your work. A very handy little accessory is an attachment to your bucket to stop the paste (or kalsomine, if you are doing tho coiling), running down tho side of tho bucket on to tho carpet. Make a little tray to fix to your bucket. This is quite easily done. Obtain a small piece of tin, s'ay, Biu. x 6in, turn a small flange 011 three of its sides, and fix two wiro clothes pegs, one on either side. Attach tlicso with plenty of solder, or even cut two small holes and wiro to the bucket firmly. Bo sure to fill up tho holes afterwards, otherwise tho paint or pasto will run down tho sides. Seo that tho tray slightly slopes toward tho bucket. Bo careful with your pasting. This needs as much care as the actual hanging of tho paper. Use a good-sized kitchen table. Cut your wallpaper to tho desired length, making certain that your pattern matches correctly. Lay four or five lengths of paper face downwards on tho table, keeping tho edgo of 0110 side neatly level, and drawn to tho front edgo of tho tabic, nearest yourself. Draw tho top length of paper over tho right-hand end of tho table, and then start pasting evenly, working from left. Seo that tho edges are well pasted. When you reach the right-hand end of tho table, lift tho pasted part of tho paper right over and fold (seo illustration), keeping the edges evenly together. Then draw the paper back over the left end of the table, and do exactly tho same with the rest of tho paper. Fold tho same back until tho two ends

slightly overlap, as shown in the next illustration. Now lav vonr paper aside to soak for a while, and continue pasting your next piece. By the way, when one mentions soaking a wallpaper this means to place aside and let tho paper absorb the paste. Olio person who was told to allow tho wallpaper to soak placed it in a bath of water. With comparatively cheap wallpapers up to, say, 2s Gd per roll, paste two or thrco_ lengths and then start hanging tho first length pasted. Tho thicker tho wallpaper tho longer it needs to soak, after pasting. When you arc hanging paper, if you are having a border or frieze at the top, it is not necessary for you to be very careful whether you take the paper right up to tho picture rail or not, as long as tho spaco loft will bo covered by your border or frieze.

That is one of tho big advantages of panelling a room, because in some types of panelling your border is under the picture rail, just above tho skirting board and down each corner. So you can seo there is no need to take right to tho top or bottom, or in each corner, and that is why pannelling a room is often far easier than papering all over.