We hang wallpaper to improve the space we live in. Wallpaper brightens a room and hides imperfections or patches in walls. We use wallpaper to set a mood or invoke an era of history or style of living. For most of us, though, wallpaper's greatest advantage is that it is an inexpensive way to decorate and can be changed with relatively little effort or expense compared to most wall treatments. Wallpaper and matching borders provide inexpensive alternatives to plaster or wood moldings, door surrounds or other architectural details.- Merchants invented wallpaper as an economical alternative to the fabric that insulated walls in medieval castles. The rising middle class wanted the same protection from drafts but could not afford the rich tapestries owned by royalty. The first wallpaper was stretched on wood screens and decorated by hand or block printing. The screens worked well and could be repapered and decorated as the merchant or craftsman's fortune increased. By the 16th century, the propertied classes had adopted the decoration, using fabric as well as hand-painted decorations on papered screens and wall treatments, hung from battens.
- Wallpaper was in general use by the 1600s, with the wealthy favoring intricate designs and the poorer classes sticking to homemade panels. French and Chinese papers were considered the finest, and French innovations included a method for gluing papers together into rolls, colored patterns and adaptations of Chinese paper patterns. Flocked paper was an early recycling product, reusing wool trimmed in the fabric mills of the early Industrial Revolution. In the next centuries, the British took the lead in developing printing machines and paper that could be attached directly on plaster, rather than using the old method of hanging from battens suspended from molding.
- Wallpaper is traditional and durable. European wallpaper rolls are still available in the length dictated by King Louis XVI in 1778, and papers made by the French master, Jean-Baptiste Réveillon, still grace colonial New England homes. Once mass-production began, wallpaper could fit into any decorating budget. Today, new materials such as vinyl and coated papers come in uniform bolts. Manufacturers sell directly on the Web through dealers who provide easy-to-use estimator programs and professional tips and advice. The most expensive or restoration papers may still be fragile, but most mid-market paper is easy to hang and keep clean. Today, most paper comes prepasted, requiring only a clean flat wall, a coat of sizing, a wallpaper tray and a set of trimming tools.
Smart do-it-yourselfers use a variety of sources to start wallpapering. Your local paint or home store may have resources for wallpapering --- a staff member or class for homeowners. Customers can browse hundreds of reasonably priced papers, order samples, decorate sample rooms, figure quantities and place orders over the Internet, making the most stressful part of wallpapering less worrisome. Look for prepasted, strippable, "scrubbable" wallpaper and you'll most probably be thrilled with the results.
