How To Hang Wallpaper
Hanging wallpaper is a project most homeowners can finish in a weekend with a few basic tools and patience. The work breaks into four method categories depending on how the wallpaper handles paste: paste-the-wall (modern non-woven, the dominant residential format today), paste-the-paper (traditional paper wallpaper that absorbs paste and expands), prepasted (wallpaper with factory-applied dry paste that activates with water), and peel-and-stick (self-adhesive wallpaper requiring no paste at all). A small room takes one weekend; a single accent wall takes one afternoon.
This guide is the complete hanging-method reference. It covers the best general way to hang wallpaper, where to start on the wall, how to prepare your walls, the tools and materials you need, how to measure and cut, how to hang the first strip, how to handle seams and obstacles, how to trim and clean up, the four main install methods in dedicated sections (paste-the-wall, paste-the-paper, prepasted, peel-and-stick), and the most common DIY mistakes to avoid.
What is the best way to hang wallpaper?
The best modern method is paste-the-wall installation with non-woven wallpaper. For a first roll it's our pick, and not by a small margin. A roller puts the paste on the wall, so the length you carry up the ladder is dry and light until you press it into that wet coat. The backing hardly takes up any paste (that's the whole trick). It doesn't swell on the way up, and it won't shrink back as it dries, so a seam stays wherever you set it. Landed a fraction off? The paste is still wet, and your palm can nudge the strip sideways until the edges meet.
Traditional paper makes you wait. It's pasted face-down on a table and folded back on itself paste to paste, then left for several minutes before it's allowed near the wall, and that pause has a name: booking. Paste-the-wall has nothing to book. Most of its speed comes from that, and so does the cleaner floor. You feel it at the top of the ladder too. Up there a dry length is close to weightless, while a soaked one droops in your hands and keeps folding over on you.
Hanging a different format? The other three each get a section further down, because once paste is involved they honestly don't act alike. The groundwork stays put, though. Prep is prep and measuring is measuring, whatever's on the roll, and you'll cut and trim the same way too.
Where do you start on the wall when wallpapering?
Start in the least visible corner of the room. Work your way all around and the last strip has to meet the first, and because room corners are rarely exactly square, that final seam almost never matches. You can't prevent it. You can choose where it lands, though. The corner behind a door is the classic spot, since an open door hides it, and it's the one we'd pick. Failing that, put it behind a big piece of furniture, or in any other spot the eye skips over.
Strip one doesn't hang from that corner. Measure one strip's width out from it, and at that point draw a true vertical with a level or a plumb bob. The first strip follows the pencil line. The corner is only a rough guide (it's probably a little out), and a strip that starts even slightly off vertical passes its lean on to the next one, which adds a bit more, until by the far wall the drift is plain to see.
From there, pick a direction and stay with it the whole way round. Clockwise or counter-clockwise makes no difference, and most installers never switch. The trouble starts when you do, because the pattern matches far more easily when each new strip always lines up against its neighbor on the same side.
How do you prepare walls for wallpapering?
Wall preparation is the same for every wallpaper format. It's also the part of the job nobody photographs, and the part we'd never squeeze into the same day as the hanging. Give it a Saturday. The primer needs its night to dry anyway.
The old paper comes off first, every last bit of it. There's always one patch near the baseboard that won't let go and looks flat enough to leave. Don't leave it. Paste can't get a proper grip on old wallpaper, and a scrap the size of your hand will show through the new install.
On the bare wall, go slowly with your palm flat against the surface. Each crack you feel gets joint compound, and so does every nail hole and ding. When it's dry, sand the patches until your hand can't find their edges, then scrape away any paint that's loose or peeling. Paper hides far less than people expect. A ridge of filler that catches your fingernail now will turn up later as a faint line running through the print.
A wall can look clean and still need washing. Go over it with a sponge and a mild detergent solution, because primer brushed onto a film of grime can fail to bond, and then leave it until it's completely dry.
Primer is the last coat. You want a wallpaper-specific one, Zinsser Shieldz or something similar. It does two jobs once it's on. The paste gets an even surface to bond to, and the drywall is sealed, so the moisture coming out of the paste stays out of the board. Let it dry fully before you start hanging wallpaper (usually overnight, which is why Sunday is hanging day).
What tools and materials do you need to hang wallpaper?
The basic toolkit is the same across methods. A wallpaper smoothing brush does the pressing, or a plastic smoother if you'd rather have a firmer edge in your hand. For trimming at the ceiling and floor you'll want a sharp utility knife, with a wide putty knife held along the line so the blade has something straight to follow.
Strip lengths come off a tape measure, and the first vertical line off a level or a plumb line. A step ladder gets you up to the ceiling line. Keep a clean bucket of warm water and a sponge within arm's reach as well (paste lands on the face of the paper more often than you'd expect, and it wipes off easily while it's wet).
Then there's the kit people forget until they're halfway through. Put a drop cloth down before the first bucket comes in, and mask the trim and outlets with painter's tape. The seam roller can sit on the windowsill until the strips are up. Then it's what you press each seam flat with.
Past that, it comes down to what's on the roll. Paste-the-wall adds a paint roller and roller tray, plus non-woven paste. For paste-the-paper you swap those for a paste brush and a clean pasting table, while prepasted only wants a wallpaper soaking tray. Peel-and-stick needs nothing beyond the basic kit and the paper. You'll find a list in each method section below.
How do you measure and cut wallpaper correctly?
Measure the height of the wall at multiple points along its length. One reading lies more often than you'd think. Floors sag and ceilings wander, and the same wall can easily stand an inch or more taller at one end. On a room with 8-foot ceilings the tape might say 96 inches by the window and 97 over by the door. Go with the 97. Add four (two come off at the ceiling, two at the floor), and plain paper on that wall gets 101-inch strips.
A pattern eats more. Follow one leaf down the roll until it shows up again, and the vertical gap between the two is the pattern repeat. Each strip needs one extra repeat, so you've got room to slide it up or down until it lines up with its neighbor. Repeats of 21 inches are common. Run that on the same wall and you're cutting 97 plus 4 plus 21, which is 122 inches, a little over ten feet of paper per strip.
Cut all of them before the paste tub is even open. That's how we'd do it, anyway. With paste on the go you've got no time to climb down and measure between hangs, and the install runs a lot quicker without that. The cut strips wait in hanging order, somewhere clean and dry.
Do the cutting flat, with a metal straightedge under your hand. Snap a new blade into the utility knife first, since a dull one tears wallpaper instead of cutting it. And yes, measure twice and cut once. Old rule. Still right.
The last habit pays off later: cut strips in sequence off a single roll. Rolls get printed in batches, and from one batch to the next the color can drift slightly. Take a wall's strips from the same roll and the color holds steady from corner to corner.
How to hang paste-the-wall (non-woven) wallpaper
Paste-the-wall non-woven is the modern residential standard and the easiest format for first-time DIY installers. Most heritage wallpaper goes up this way now, and the William Morris Designs collection is no different.
The paste needs a head start, so mix it before you do anything else. It's usually a powder you stir into cold water, and then it sits for the time on the package (fifteen to twenty minutes is typical) while it hydrates. Check that the tub says it's rated for non-woven before you buy it. Standard wallpaper paste is too thin for this format.
While it hydrates, set out a roller tray and a paint roller with a medium nap. Once the paste is ready, pour some in and roll it onto the wall in even strokes, a band roughly two strip widths across. You're after a thin coat that looks the same everywhere, with no dry patches and no puddles.
The dry strip goes straight up into that wet paste. Leave its top edge about two inches above the ceiling line, since that's your trimming allowance, and set its side edge on the plumb line. Then smooth from the top center outward and down with a wallpaper brush or a plastic smoother. You'll feel the backing settle into the paste under your hand.
Speed matters more here than anywhere else in the job. Rolled paste starts to skin over in ten or fifteen minutes, and you want paper on it within five. So you work one band at a time, and each band gets its two strips before the roller goes back in the tray. (This is also why every strip should already be cut. There's no room in those five minutes for a tape measure.)
You won't be booking anything, either. Non-woven backing is dimensionally stable, which in plain terms means paste can't make it expand and it won't shrink as you go, so the last strip on the wall is exactly as wide as the first.
How to hang traditional paste-the-paper wallpaper
Traditional paper wallpaper paste-the-paper installation is the older method, still used for specialty paper wallpaper, grasscloth, and some heritage reproductions. Paper like this drinks water out of the paste and grows slightly. Booking is how you deal with it.
Use standard wallpaper paste, mixed to the package directions and left for its full hydration time. It's made for traditional paper. Non-woven paste is too heavy for it.
None of the pasting happens on the wall. The strip lies face-down on a clean pasting table (a swept patch of floor will do if there's no table), and the paste brush works from the middle out to the edges. All the way out. You'll want to go easy near them to spare the table, and that's the stroke you'll regret, because a thin or missed edge is how a seam lifts later.
Then you fold it. Bottom third up, pasted face to the middle; top third down to meet it, paste to paste. On the 122-inch strip from the measuring section, that leaves a soft, damp bundle that is much easier to carry to the wall. It rests there for the manufacturer's time (usually five to ten minutes), and the expanding happens on the table instead of on your wall.
A kitchen timer is our answer here. Rush it and the paper keeps expanding after it's hung, so you get bubbles and seams that won't match. Wait too long, on the other hand, and the paste begins drying on the back, and the strip fights you as you open it out. The manufacturer's booking time is a number to hit. It isn't a ballpark.
When it goes off, open the strip and hang it. Flatten it from the center outward with a brush or smoother. The surplus at top and bottom comes away under a sharp utility knife.
How to hang prepasted wallpaper
Prepasted wallpaper comes with dry paste already applied to the back. Water is what wakes it up. Each strip soaks in lukewarm water for thirty to sixty seconds and goes onto the wall wet, which puts the format somewhere between traditional paste-the-paper and modern peel-and-stick.
There's one special tool, a soaking tray long enough to hold a full cut strip unfolded. Most hardware stores sell prepasted wallpaper trays for $10 to $20. No tray? A clean bathtub gets you by in a pinch.
Fill it with lukewarm water, warm from the tap and somewhere in the eighty- to ninety-degree-Fahrenheit range. That's the safe middle. Hotter water can activate the paste too aggressively, and a strip that's been in it may weaken or even tear in your hands.
Before a strip goes in, roll it up loosely from the bottom so it can't stick to itself, then lower it in for thirty to sixty seconds, or whatever the manufacturer specifies. It's a short window with a failure on each side. Come out early and some of the paste never activates. Stay in too long and the paste starts washing off the back into the tray, which weakens the bond.
Lift it out slowly by the top edge, the end that stayed out of the water. The strip unrolls as you raise it, and the extra water drains back into the tray instead of onto the floor. By the time the bottom edge clears the tray, the paste is live and ready to bond to the wall.
Booking comes next for most prepasted wallpapers. Fold the strip back on itself, paste side to paste side, the same as traditional paper, and three to five minutes lets it finish expanding. Then unfold it and hang it the way the sections above describe.
Does it need extra glue? Usually not, for a standard install on a primed wall, because the factory paste holds well enough on its own. On some installs the seams benefit from a little extra. An unprimed or slick wall may need more than that, and the wallpaper manufacturer's instructions will spell it out.
How to hang unpasted wallpaper
Unpasted wallpaper ships with no paste applied. You buy the paste on its own and mix it to the package directions, and where it goes depends on the backing. For non-woven it goes on the wall. For traditional paper it goes on the back of each strip. The paste-the-wall and paste-the-paper sections above cover both.
Most unpasted wallpaper made today is non-woven, so most of it goes up paste-the-wall. Our traditional range is one example: unpasted non-woven that installs with the paste-the-wall method. The exceptions are a few specialty papers made the traditional way, and those go up paste-the-paper, booking step included.
If you can't tell which kind you've got, the label settles it, because it names the paste method the manufacturer recommends. A non-woven roll wants non-woven paste rated for paste-the-wall. A traditional paper roll wants standard wallpaper paste rated for paste-the-paper. Get it backward and you risk bond failure, or seams that start pulling apart.
We think the extra step is worth it. Over the long term unpasted performs better than prepasted, because wet paste put on during the install grips harder than dry factory paste woken up with water. The choice of paste is yours as well. In a bathroom you might pick a fungicide-treated one, and you also decide how thick it goes on and how long the strips book. For premium heritage wallpaper, unpasted is the standard.
How to hang peel-and-stick wallpaper
Peel-and-stick wallpaper has a self-adhesive backing. You peel away the release liner and press the paper onto the wall, a bit like a very large sticker. There's no paste involved, and nothing to soak.
Renters like it, and so do short-term projects, because taken down correctly it strips off cleanly without damaging the paint underneath. It's kind to DIY beginners too. Print quality has improved since 2020, though we'd still choose a non-woven paste-the-wall install for anything meant to stay up for years, since peel-and-stick lags behind it on long-term performance.
Two people make it far easier. One of you holds the top of the strip against the wall. The other peels back the liner bit by bit and follows it down with a plastic smoother. On your own, the adhesive tends to catch the wall somewhere you didn't mean it to while you're still lining the strip up.
Smooth from the center outward so any air bubbles get chased to the edges. A small one that stays behind can be lanced with a sharp pin and pressed flat. For more on the format itself, see What Is Peel and Stick Wallpaper.
How do you handle seams between wallpaper strips?
Butt the seams against each other with no overlap and no gap. An overlap leaves a thick ridge that's permanent once the paste dries. A gap looks like a crack in the wall.
It's easier than it sounds to get a seam into position. Hang each new strip about half an inch away from the last one to begin with. Smooth it onto the wall and then slide it sideways, using your hands or a wallpaper smoothing brush, until the two edges just meet. A wallpaper seam roller presses the join flat.
The pattern is the other half of it, and it has to match at every seam. Most patterned wallpapers have a defined repeat that lines up across each join, and this is where the extra repeat you added to every strip back at the cutting stage gets used. It costs a few inches of offcut per strip. We'd make that trade every time for a much cleaner result.
Seen a seam open up slightly after the install? That's the wallpaper shrinking as it dries. Usually the prepasted paper didn't soak long enough, or the room was low on humidity while you papered it. Next time, give each strip a few more seconds in the water and keep more humidity in the room as you work.
How do you wallpaper around obstacles like windows, doors, outlets, and corners?
For windows and doors, hang the wallpaper strip over the obstacle and cut around the frame after the strip is in place. Until then it's a loose flap over the frame. Your first cut is rough and a little generous, a sharp utility knife riding along a wide putty knife. Only once the strip sits exactly where you want it do you go back for the final clean cut.
With outlets and switches the breaker comes before the knife, so kill the power there. Then paper straight over the box as if it weren't there. When the strip has settled, slice an X across the opening with the utility knife and fold the four flaps back. Trim the flaps flush with the edge of the box. The cover goes back on over the top, and it holds the wallpaper in place.
Inside corners are where people try to save a cut. One long strip folded round the bend looks tidier, but walls are rarely perfectly square, and that wrapped strip drags itself out of plumb. Cut it about half an inch past the corner, smoothing the extra onto the next wall. A fresh strip starts there and overlaps by the same half inch.
An outside corner is friendlier. Paper wraps cleanly over a convex angle, so run one continuous strip around it when you can. The exception is a corner that's badly out of square, and you treat that one like an inside corner, cut and overlapped.
Anything permanent, like a radiator or a light fixture, is generally less work to paper around than to take down. A few small relief cuts let the paper ease around it. Smooth it flat, then trim off the excess.
How do you trim excess wallpaper and clean up paste?
Trim excess wallpaper at the ceiling and floor with a sharp utility knife. Back on the 97-inch wall from the measuring section, you'd have two spare inches creased against the ceiling and two more draped over the baseboard. Push the wide putty knife hard into the joint so the paper folds tight into the corner, then draw the blade along its edge. That edge is your guide (nobody cuts freehand here). Reach the end of it and you slide it along one width and keep going.
Go through blades freely. They're the cheap part of the job, and we'd change one long before it looks worn. A fresh edge slices paper clean. A dull one drags, and it tears the corner of a strip you spent all that time matching.
Paste that lands on the front is the sneaky one. Catch it wet and a single pass of a clean damp sponge lifts it. Let it dry and you're left with a shiny smear, or a faint color shift sitting right on the print, and neither comes off easily.
Your tools need the same quick care at the end of the day. Warm water rinses brushes clean while the paste is still soft. A roller left in its tray overnight is another story (so is a smoother on the windowsill), and you'll spend far longer in the morning picking dried paste off it.
Last, walk the finished wall slowly, close enough to touch it. Usually what turns up is missed paste. A seam that's lifted goes back down under a clean smoother, and a small air bubble gets pricked with a sharp pin and pressed flat while the paste behind it is still slightly wet.
What are the most common DIY wallpaper mistakes to avoid?
Skipping wall preparation is the most common mistake. Hardly anyone skips it on purpose. The big holes get filled and the hairline cracks don't, or most of the old paper comes off and one stubborn corner gets left because it's nearly flat anyway. Paper needs a smooth, clean wall with primer on it. Once the paste dries, every crack and hole you left shows through, and so does that corner.
Buying the wrong format for the room is a close second, and it happens before you've opened a roll. Standard non-woven is for dry rooms only. A family bathroom where the shower runs every morning doesn't count, and neither does a kitchen where something's simmering most evenings. Those rooms need vinyl-on-non-woven. Traditional paper fails in any wet room, so check how much moisture the room actually sees before you order.
A crooked first strip comes next. On its own it barely looks wrong. The trouble is that every strip after it takes its alignment from that first one, so a lean you can hardly see at strip one has grown into an obvious tilt by the time you're back at the corner. A level and a pencil line fix it before you start, as long as strip one sits exactly on that line.
Seams where the pattern won't meet get blamed on the hanging, but most of the time the cutting is the culprit. A patterned paper has a defined repeat that has to line up across each join. Cut the strips without that extra length (21 inches per strip on the wall from the measuring section) and they're simply too short to carry the pattern across.
Rushing is the hardest one to resist, especially late on Sunday with a wall still to go. We'd give each strip ten minutes, not five, and finish smoothing it before touching the next. A hurried wall gives itself away fast. The edges start to lift. The pattern drifts out of line, and some of the seam mistakes are visible from the doorway.
Last comes paste, which is easy to get wrong in the store aisle. Non-woven wants non-woven paste. Traditional paper takes standard wallpaper paste, and vinyl is fussier again, needing a vinyl-rated paste with fungicide in it. Whatever your roll is, the manufacturer names the paste it recommends. Read that before you mix.
How long does it take to hang wallpaper?
A small room takes one weekend for a careful DIY installer. The first few strips eat most of the clock. You measure twice and recheck the plumb line, and you probably read the paste tub again too. A few strips in, measuring and cutting stop needing much thought. Pasting and hanging fall into a rhythm (the trimming too), and hanging wallpaper gets quicker than you'd expect.
The usual yardstick is a 12 by 14 foot room with 8-foot ceilings. Budget 6 to 10 hours for it, and that figure already counts the wall prep and the cleanup on top of the install itself. Our advice is not to do it in one go. Get the prep and primer done on Saturday, let the primer dry overnight, and hang on Sunday with fresh eyes.
Some rooms run long. A bigger room obviously does, and so does a pattern with a complex repeat. Unprimed walls slow you down at the seams, because they need more careful alignment there. Papering over several layers of old wallpaper adds time as well, and it means you skipped the stripping, which we wouldn't.
If you'd rather pay someone, pro installation runs $400 to $800 per room. Where you land in that range comes down to the pattern's complexity and how much prep the walls need, and regional labor rates play a part. A professional usually has a single residential room done in 4 to 6 hours.
How to hang wallpaper questions
What is the easiest way to hang wallpaper?
Paste-the-wall non-woven wallpaper is the easiest format for DIY installers. Land strip one half an inch off the plumb line and you just slide it across on the wet paste, with nothing to soak and nothing to book, which is a big part of why most beginners get a small room done in a weekend.
Where should I start hanging wallpaper?
Start in the least visible corner of the room, typically behind a door or behind a piece of furniture. Not right in the corner, though. The first strip hangs on a plumb line one strip's width out, and you keep heading the same way round the room from there until you meet that corner again at the end.
Do you paste the wall or the paper?
For modern non-woven wallpaper, paste the wall. Traditional paper is the one that gets paste brushed on its back and then booked. Can't tell which you have? Read the label; William Morris Wallpaper is paste-the-wall non-woven, as most modern heritage collections are.
How long do you soak prepasted wallpaper?
Thirty to sixty seconds in lukewarm water (eighty to ninety degrees Fahrenheit), depending on the manufacturer's instructions. The temperature matters about as much as the timing, since hot water can weaken the paper and cool water won't fully activate the paste.
What is wallpaper booking?
Booking is the step in paste-the-paper installation (and prepasted activation) where you fold a pasted wallpaper strip onto itself so the pasted sides meet. It looks like idle time. While it rests (five to ten minutes for traditional paper, three to five for most prepasted) the paper soaks up the paste and does its expanding on the table instead of on the wall, where it would turn into bubbles and seams that won't match.
Is unpasted or prepasted wallpaper better?
Unpasted gives better long-term performance through a stronger paste bond and lets you choose the paste type. Prepasted does save a little time on a simple install. For premium heritage wallpaper, though, our pick is unpasted, and the same goes for a large room or a wet one.
Where can I buy paste-the-wall wallpaper online?
The William Morris Wallpaper collection at williammorriswallpaper.co carries the full Morris heritage range plus contemporary botanical, chinoiserie, geometric, watercolor, and metallic wallpapers in paste-the-wall non-woven format. All of it goes up the way the paste-the-wall section above describes, so that's the part of this guide worth keeping open on your phone while you work.
