Laura Ashley Isodore Charcoal Linen design.

02/06/2012 | By Tim More

Hanging a Laura Ashley Charcoal Linen design wallpaper to a stair well wall in Rochester.

I have recently finished a small wallcovering job in a home in Rochester, Kent. It was for regular clients who are genuinely nice to decorate for. I had only had a call from them about 18 months previously asking if I’d be interested in painting a staircase for them.
They called me in to hang a Laura Ashley wallpaper design called Isodore Charcoal Linen to their stairs on the Well Wall, which is the long wall with the biggest drop from ceiling to floor, (you’ll see it in the gallery images below).

The wall area was filled where necessary and rubbed smooth using my Abranet virtually dustless sanding system from Mirka. Following the sanding and vacumming any surface dust off, the wall area being papered had one coat of Zinsser Gardz HPS applied. This is a great product which binds down chalky and porous surfaces ready to hang a new wallcovering on. It even takes most paints. In using Gardz prior to wallpapering, it helps to provide a good slip so the paper can be manoeuvred about when on the wall i.e. when sliding the paper toward the plumb line or laser line or when butting the second length to the first etc.

I always recommend lining your walls, as do Laura Ashley.

As usual, it pays to have the walls cross-lined prior to hanging any wallcovering. Some property owners try to save a few pounds here and there on a project. Why pay for a quality paper and then scrimp on lining the walls and run the risk of the joins splitting etc?
On a lot of decorative papers, the manufacturer requires the installer to hang a quality lining paper prior to hanging the decorative paper. If you don’t do it and joints split, the manufacturer may not be interested if any claim should arise due to faults, i.e. parting joints.
I cross-lined this wall with a quality MAV 1400 grade lining paper. Anything higher than 1400 would have been overkill.

Next day, it was back in to hang the Laura Ashley Charcoal Linen design paper which has a really nice pearlescent ink effect. It took four rolls to complete this project. I asked the home owner to initially order 6 rolls as there ended up being a return wall to paper as well. Six were ordered due to me not knowing anything about the paper being chosen i.e. the pattern size, whether the design was a straight match, offset match or a free match. These all affect how much paper is needed.

I was using Olfa black blades to trim this paper. They handle most papers very well and are one of the better manufacturers of blades on the market today.

The client was very happy with the finished look of this small project and I received a pleasant text message to say so too.