The prep work is done. The lining paper is on. But before your wallpaper can take its bow there’s the woodwork to complete. We don’t miss the days when you could spend an entire day applying a coat of paint to doors and skirting boards with a brush. Foam rollers have made glossing a far less laborious task – but how do you achieve a professional finish?

Orange peel finish

A foam roller makes light work of glossing but the finish has a kind of ‘orange peel’ texture to it. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it might not be the finish you want.

One solution is to let the paint down a little (10-20%) with water or spirit depending on whether the paint is water or oil based. Used as a final coat you’ll achieve a uniform, untextured finish. That’s not practical if you’re using one-coat paint (because you shouldn’t really let it down) – and you still don’t get the feel of a brush finish. For that you need…erm, a brush.

Lay off

Roller your door as usual, then switch to a brush to ‘lay-off’. That is, lightly brush the painted surface of the wood in single, flowing strokes following the grain. Not only will you achieve a brush finish, you’ll also remove excess paint, reducing runs and drips.

Allow the gloss to dry completely before you start wallpapering – that way you’ll be able to wash any excess paste from your wood without damaging the paintwork.

Once upon a time it was magnolia that was the ever present colour in homes where the inspiration had run out before all the rooms had been decorated. It was a kind of default, as if that was how every room would be decorated if you didn’t push the boat out a little.

Magnolia is once more a tone you can approach with confidence, but only because another default shade has stolen its crown: white.

To be clear: there’s nothing wrong with magnolia and there’s nothing wrong with white. It’s what you do with those colours that counts. Let’s suppose you wallpaper your hallway in a blown vinyl and paint every surface white. Yes it will look crisp and clean – and white has a rather natty way of using light and shade to create its own depth. But you’ll be missing a focal point, and warmth.

Make white work

Add a daring splash of contrast and you’ll find that it’s not only the contrast wall that benefits – all your white surfaces will seem stronger too.

The boldness of the black motif in two of these papers, and the shading in the centre one, draws the eye and adds interest. And even if you only wallpaper a single wall, you’ll find the whole room is lifted as a result.

Give white something to work with. Ask us for more ideas to bring your white room to life.

A while back some friends of ours invited us round to their new cottage in the country. It was (and still is) picture postcard 18^th Century stuff: big beams, small windows and almost impossible to heat properly. As far as we could tell there’s barely a right angle in the place, which makes wallpapering a bit of a challenge.

The previous owners had chosen a striped wallpaper for their bedroom. They’d probably regretted it almost immediately. If your walls aren’t straight, your wallpaper can’t hope to be, and these walls were anything but straight.

The result was a striped pattern as if viewed in a hall of mirrors – all dodgy angles, with the natural lumps and bumps in the wall playing havoc with the clean lines. “What do you suggest?” they asked.

What we suggested was this: in a house where the walls are appealingly wonky, you can’t hope to make a wallpaper which relies on straightness work. But that doesn’t mean you can’t go for geometric designs – they just need to be designs that won’t be thrown out by irregularities in the wall – like this Teal Glitter Wave.

Small floral patterns can also work wonderfully in an older house. It’s not only because of their cottage charm, but because you can wallpaper over the most obstinate of surfaces and still achieve a result that looks as if you didn’t have to fight the wall to achieve it.

Just a reminder to all our customers that on the 24th December, all orders must be placed before 12pm. We will then be closed on the 25th – 27th December.

We will then be back open with our normal delivery times on the 28th – 31st December however, orders must be placed before 12pm. We are closed on the 1st January and then open as usual.

We would like to wish all our customers a very Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year from all of us at the Wallpaper Central team.

It’s that time again. Time to make the same resolutions you make every year in the hope of not breaking them within a fortnight. So, for 2013, let’s make some decor-based resolutions you can stick to.

Decorate at least one room this year

Despite your plans, you didn’t do it last year. Or the year before that. The longer you leave it, the more rooms start to demand your attention. Before you know it, the whole house needs doing. Break the job (and cost) down. Pick a room to redecorate – and stick to the plan.

Declutter

Once the new wallpaper’s transformed your room into a palace of chic opulence, keep it that way. Give the new design room to breathe. And if that means finding a new home for those 200 porcelain pigs, well so be it.

Try something new

You like magnolia. It’s clean and simple and doesn’t get in the way. And painting the wall is so much easier than wallpapering. Can we suggest that, if you’ve been painting the wall for the last decade, you’re home is probably ready for a change. All those feature walls we keep talking about? Now’s your chance. Don’t be afraid to add a dash of boldness, vibrancy and excitement to you wall. And if you need to kick some ideas around you’ll find us on 01254 582735.

Fall in love with your home again

It’s more than a place to store your ‘stuff’ and rest your head at night. Redecorating can make you see the home you thought you knew in a completely different light. These are, as we keep being told, times of austerity. Yet a little time and a few rolls of wallpaper can make your home a livelier, more exciting place to be for the rest of the year. And all for less than the price of a weekend away.

Wallpaper of the month? That’ll be this beauty from Fine Decor. There’s a wonderful Victoriana vibe to this paper. It has a deliciously classic feel, brought bang up to date by a striking use of colour and texture.

The candelabra motif is created in metallic gel which gives the wallpaper real boldness. The colours have been chosen for maximum feature wall effect- the teal, red and silver practically begging for matching cushions and curtains.

But what we really love about this wallpaper, especially at this time of year, is what it signifies. Family gathered round the table. Warm nights in front of the fire. Candlelight, sparkle and glamour. It is that rarest of things – a wallpaper that looks as if it could have been designed with Christmas in mind, but which doesn’t actually feature anything overtly Christmassy.

That means it will complement the Christmas decorations when they’re up, and will still look striking (and appropriate) once they’re down again.

We have mixed feelings about Christmas decorations. For all their glittery, sparkly loveliness, it’s your wallpaper beneath we feel sorry for. So here’s a quick guide to decorating your home for Christmas, without putting the decor you enjoy the rest of the year in jeopardy.

1.    Sticky tape and wallpaper

They don’t mix. Ever. At best, you’ll get away with the odd gummy patch on your wall. At worst, when you remove your decorations you’ll take strips of wallpaper with them. If you have to use sticky tape, confine it to woodwork and give the surface a good wipe with soapy water once the decorations are down.

2.     Drawing pins

There’s a knack to ensuring your wallpaper doesn’t look like a dartboard. If you’re using drawing pins, hide them in concealed places. We suggest the tops of picture rails, the undersides of dado rails and the bits of door surround no one ever sees.

3.    Tack

Try and keep all tacks and gums away from your wallpaper. Oils from the tack can discolour the paper beneath, and there’s always the danger of removing tack and taking some paper with it. As with drawing pins, try and keep the tack to the unnoticeable areas of your woodwork.

4.    Candles

Who doesn’t enjoy the sight (and smell) of candles at Christmas? To protect the decor, use smoke-free candles. Alternatively, each time you light a candle, choose a different spot for the candle holder to avoid the build up of any sooty residues.

5.    Snow

It’s all so easy to get a bit carried away isn’t it? For your wallpaper’s sake, can we ask that you screen the wall (or move your Christmas Tree) while you spray it with artificial snow? That way you won’t be left with a tree-shaped snowy silhouette on your wall come January.

From all of us at Wallpaper Central, have a very Merry Christmas.

The Mercury. The Selleck. The Dali. Facial fur has long been a staple of popular culture. Combine it with fund raising in aid of men’s health and it’s not difficult to see why Movember has been such a global success.

Facial hair is cool again and suddenly men’s faces are once more exploding with Wiggins-style mutton chops and Rufus Hound-style handlebars. Even James Bond himself gets stubbly for his latest outing.

Even so, we never expected to see moustaches on our wallpaper…

Wallpaper does many things. Raising a smile isn’t often one of them. But we love this frankly daft paper. No, perhaps it’s not what you had in mind for your living room, but for a student bedroom? A games room? Even a gents’ barbers? We defy you to put this on your wall and not have anyone who sees it break into a grin.

And if it encourages you to join the Movember movement, well, even better.

Recently we visited some friends who’ve been hard at work stripping back the chimney breast in their living room to reveal the bricks beneath. They wanted to give their room a rustic, heritage charm.

Sadly, the original builders didn’t have design elegance in mind when they built the house. The uncovered wall was a fairly random assortment of brick ends held together by some imaginative pointing. There was more cement than brick.

As a result, our friends replastered the wall and opted for a feature of a very different sort: a rather stunning Arthouse wallpaper.

Yet that heritage appeal could have been so much easier to achieve – and it wouldn’t have needed a demolition job to get the best results.

These wallpapers, used judiciously, can create the warmth and homeliness of wood or brick for a fraction of the effort and expense. Although you’d best warn visitors against trying to take a book off that shelf…

The best decorating results come when you’ve a solid plan of action and you stick to it. If you’re new to decorating you’ll find one of the simplest but most important planning decisions is this: will you do the painting first, or the wallpapering?

1. Ceiling paper

We’re skipping past the stripping and preparation stages – something you never should do – to the part where you stop removing and destroying, and start rebuilding. A papered ceiling adds warmth and depth and texture. In high-ceilinged rooms or older buildings we’d always recommend putting a paper on the ceiling (if only to hide the cracks). We’d also recommend doing it first.

1. Lining paper

If you’re lining your wall (and as we’ve discussed in previous posts, you’ll get a better finish if you do) then do it now, before you start painting. If you’re dispensing with the wallpaper and painting your lining paper instead, paint it now.

1. Paint

Some things are obvious. Clearly you can’t paint your ceiling paper unless it’s already on your ceiling. But why paint your woodwork now, when wallpapering will inevitably cover your shiny new paintwork in paste?

The reason is that wallpaper paste will easily wipe off paintwork (don’t let the paste dry and use a damp cloth). It’s an awful lot harder to get paint off your wallpaper.

1. Wallpaper

Once the woodwork is dry, apply the wallpaper to your clean, lined surface. With the painting already complete you’ll have clean lines to work to, helping you achieve a professional finish.