Wallpaper Buying Guide

Wallpaper Buying Guide – The Essentials

Welcome to the wallpaper buying guide. With a fantastic range of different patterns, colours and textures to choose from, hanging wallpaper is a chance to really get creative, making a bold statement which reflects who you are and what you want your home to be like. Equally, classic designs from the past can create the perfect backdrop for your period style furniture, and stripes or simple patterns can subtly emphasis the colour palette of a room. However, getting the absolute most out of wallpaper requires a little careful forethought, which is why we’ve put together this handy buying guide.

Things to consider

Remember to measure your walls prior to purchasing wallpaper. How many rolls required will vary, but a member of our team will be happy to advise you. Avoid the need to purchase additional rolls, as you may find that there are slight variations between batches.

For high-traffic areas such as living rooms and corridors, restrict your choices to hard-wearing materials such as vinyl or fabric, as this will reduce occurrences of unsightly wear and tear. If it is likely that water will be an issue, for example in kitchens or bathrooms, a vinyl wallpaper is by far the most suitable option.

Feature Walls

If you want to use wallpaper to in your décor but don’t want to go as far as covering an entire room, a popular compromise is to create a feature by papering just one wall. This can achieve a highly effective contrast, and can go a long way towards making smaller rooms appear larger, or mitigating the absence of natural light.

Wall Coverings

Wall coverings occupy the middle ground between wall paper and fine art. Rather than repeating patterns, these attractive creations combine unique rolls of high-quality ‘paper’ (often actually luxury vinyl or fabric) to create a picture or mural on your wall. This can be anything you can imagine, although landscapes and natural scenes are most popular.

Patterned or Striped?

Homeowners looking for an understated wallpapered look often choose striped designs as they work exceptionally well with plain colours used elsewhere in the house. They also have the benefit of giving a illusion of height in low-ceiling rooms, and can be hung vertically for a classic look, or horizontally for a more unusual effect.

Patterned wallpaper offers more choice, ranging from floral patterns to modern geometric shapes, but can be difficult to coordinate with the look and feel of your home. Given careful time and thought, however, and the results can be truly stunning.

Wallpaper Materials (Pros and Cons)

It surprises some people to learn that not all wallpaper is actually made of paper at all. Instead, many manufacturers of high-end wallpaper use more durable materials such as vinyl or fabric, which have the added bonus of having more to offer in terms of texture and finish.

In case you have not considered the relative benefits of the various materials before, here are some of the key advantages and disadvantages of each:

Vinyl

Pros:

• Durable and hard-wearing
• Easy to install without the risk of tearing
• Easy to clean
• Capable of withstanding a much higher degree of moisture.

Cons:

• Typically more expensive
• Some find that the texture looks unnatural.

Fabric

Pros:

• Beautiful, natural texture
• Hard-wearing
• Classical designs which convey a timeless quality.

Cons:

• Expect to pay more
• Susceptible to staining.

Paper

Pros:

• Typically more economical
• Wide variety of colour/pattern choices.

Cons:

• Liable to tear during installation
• Susceptible to staining.

Why buy from us?

Based near Guildford, Vale Furnishers are one of Surrey and Hampshire’s leading furniture shop specialists. A family business, Vale Furnishers began back in 1960, and it wasn’t long before we established the reputation for superb products, excellent customer service, and great value for money that we have been able to maintain right up until the present day. We understand that how good the walls in your home look is every bit as important as the quality of the furniture in it. So there really is no better place to find beautiful wallpaper and wall coverings of which you can be proud. We hope this wallpaper buying guide will help you to make more informed decisions for when it comes to buying new wallapaper for your home.