Wallpapering one wall - Inspirations

Israfel

I bought an old house before christmas and been working hard on removing the old layers of wallpaper and generally clearing out the bad. I've seen it done before where one wall in the room is wallpapered and the rest is painted normally and thought it looked great. One of the walls in the living room and one in the bedroom are quite uneven and I thought this could be a nice way to cheaply make them look good. Has anyone done this before, got some decent advice or inspiration links they could share. Would be much appreciated, I'm new to all this interior design as it's my first house and finding it hard to find inspriration.

Cheers

Israfel

Actually I might ask, with uneven walls, do people find they're that noticeable if painted over, I've polyfilled any holes/ small cracks etc and am in the process of sanding down the walls. My intention would be to put a thick coat of primer on and paint, will this be enough (I know its a tough question to answer without pics etc.)

bb69

Not sure what your budget is? try B&Q they have some lovely wallpaper for feature walls or Neisha Crosland if you fancy treating yourself

Israfel

I don't have a set budget, it's whatever feels right, I looked at B&Q last night and there were some nice wallpapers in there, I've also come across Cole & Son wallpapers that have some nice stuff. Problem is it's hard to know what colours compliment them and how to make them work in a room, at least to a complete novice like myself

Gopppers

Hi there, I managed to talk my husband into doing a wallpapered feature wall in our bedroom - we got the wallpaper from b&q and I have to say, the room looks great!! (Best one in the house). I have to say, try and get rid of any obvious lumps and bumps and holes in your wall before you paper over them as (dependent on the wallpaper type) you can see them through and it will help you stick the paper onto the wall much easier as you can slide the paper once its on the wall with ease.

I originally wanted wallpaper that was about £80 a roll (it was stunning) but my husband eventually talked me out of it, but your best bet is to have a look in any wallpaper selling stores or even online (you can get samples from online stores) and see what styles you prefer and then decide on the colour of the rest of the walls based on the colour of the wallpaper. Hope this helps!

Gops x

madget_2

We actually did end up buying some Cole & Sons £80+ a roll wallpaper - although I managed to find it on a website for under £70! Sadly, I can't remember which site we used as it was a few years ago. If I do, I'll let you know.

I 100% agree with Goppers that you should try to make the wall look as smooth as possible, especially if you buy an expensive paper - otherwise it can really spoil the effect and show up every lump and bump. Ours had a metallic silver background and would have been a nightmare on uneven walls.

I justified buying 2 expensive rolls of wallpaper as I was able to keep costs to a minimum elsewhere in the room - very cheap, but lovely Ikea table lamps, sale bargain bedding and curtains, replacing the handles on our old bedroom furniture with lovely new ones, incredibly realistic leather-look headboard. So overall, it ended up being a budget makeover, but the stunning wallpaper gives a real wow factor, and anyone who sees the room thinks it looks amazing.

For inspiration, try looking through magazines, catalogues or online sites. Graham & Green is one of my favorites for coming up with ideas. You don't need to buy from them, just look around and see if you can come up with something similar on the cheap.

I usually base my rooms on something I fall in love with - a colour, a piece of wallpaper, a framed picture - anything that catches your eye. Then you can work around it.

Ikea is fantastic for cheap lamps and little bits of pieces. Also, have a wander around places like Habitat - sometimes they have bargains, particularly during sales, but it's also great for gathering ideas about what you'd like.

I don't think I can post links yet (being a newbie), so you'll need to remove the spaces, but here are some sites I love for inspiration:

www . grahamandgreen . co uk
www . lauraashley . com / cat / homefurnishings
www . housetohome . co .uk
www . channel4 . com / 4homes / design-style
www . mydeco . com

Mrs_Imp

Try Brewers for a really good selection of wallpaper. I spent 2 and a half hours chosing some for our living room. We lined with really heavy duty lining paper first. It's made such a difference and has smoothed the walls quite well.

Israfel

Thank you very much guys, some great advice there, I have gone through the walls with a fine tooth comb polyfilling any groves and missing chunks and this weekend is earmarked for sanding down the walls to get them as smooth as possible, oh the joy Still haven't decided on anything yet but some great design ideas in those links

madget_2

The sanding and prep is a bit of a pain, but really, really worth it in the end. You'll be glad you did, and should end up with an absolutely beautiful feature wall! :-)

Good luck!

cons

hi we are same situation as you

most of the walls in the house are uneven, lumpy, nail holes etc

i started sanding each wall, then filling them, then sanding then painted them with cheap paint from B&Q ( 10l Crown matt £10 ) then i sanded again bits that were needing done and filled again then painted with magnolia from Crown again, and the results speak for themself..

house is a 1950s and every wall is near perfect now. Takes time but imo its worth it when you stand back and remember how it looks when i first started..

finished it off with some 100mm plaster coving as i had horrible 2 inch thick lengths of wood on all the ceilings

Israfel

Cons,

Sounds like our walls were near identical, 50 odd years worth of drill holes, scratches and cracks. Your advice is great and pretty much along the lines of what I'm doing, I'm going wall by wall smoothing it out as much as possible with filler and then I'm just going to spend a few days sanding like crazy, intend to paint it white first with a nice thick paint like you were saying, then I'll see how the walls come up properly painted and take it from there as a blank canvas