WALLPAPER, YOUR HOME BEST FRIEND

Decorating your home with wallpaper is incredibly easy and the results are always impressive; making your home look greater year after year. Wallpapers are fresh and fabulous, but they can be intimidating. Due to its fiber nature, wallpaper allows moisture to pass through and the walls to breathe. This means that any damp patches that appear when you hang your wallpaper will disappear within a day or less, as soon as the wallpaper dries. Unlike the loud retro, shiny papers that were used in 1970s, these days they come in different colors and designs: Vintage wallpaper which is the most interesting and fun type of paper that you can buy,  Ready-pasted wallpaper, Woodchip wallpaper, Lining paper, Textured relief wallpaper and Coated wallpaper.

No matter the size of the room, all you need to know is what colours and patterns match, and you are good to go. For a small room, the worst wallpaper in this situation would be a dark-coloured paper with a small print; it will make the room gloomy and even smaller. Instead, go with a large, fantastical print. The oversized design creates the visual illusion that the walls are bigger. In a situation where you want to create a sense of calmness in your bedroom, you can go for small print wallpapers, but not on the living room because the small prints will someday fade out in the largeness of the space and then you will regret your great artwork.

Because of its exorbitant price in Nigeria, not everybody can afford wallpaper.

However, you can create a dramatic pattern by hanging a mirror opposite the wall to create an echo of the print and it does not require the expense of papering both walls.

Tips on how to use wallpapers

Tip One: Be careful that the surface you intend to decorate is suitable and prepared.

If the wall you want to decorate is damp, you should not attempt to do it until you cure the damp. There are damp sealers available that you can paint on, however a word of caution, damp coming into your house usually signals a problem with your outside walls and you should look to cure that issue before continuing to hang your wallpaper.

Tip two: Choose the correct paper for the job

You also need to choose suitable wallpaper for the particular space you are to decorate. Wallpapers for bathrooms and kitchens are notably different and need to be colour-fast and wipe clean. High traffic areas such as staircase and corridors/ passages need particularly durable papers to cope with taps and scratches.

Tip three: Think about colour and its effect in the room.

Colour psychology is all in the range nowadays, and you can really transform the “feel” of any space in your home with the right colour.

Small rooms need  light colours, but you can mix and match colours to complement each other and bring some interest into the space. For rooms that open out to the outside, for example, choose a colour of wallpaper that best reflects or complements the light coming into the room and the colours that can be seen by looking outside. Also, consider the other aspects of the room when hanging paper, like getting pattern or colour that will match the floor or with the colour of the doors.

By: Okoye Chizzy