DH Painter & Decorator hangs wallpaper in homes across Briar Hill (NN4), about 1.3 miles south-west of Northampton town centre. Dean strips old paper, makes good the plaster in the estate's 1970s houses and hangs anything from a single feature wall to a fully papered bedroom.
Why a feature wall suits these houses
Briar Hill’s houses went up from 1969 onwards on the land of the former Briar Hill Farm, and from the outside many of the terraces look much alike. Inside, living rooms and bedrooms from that era tend to be plain, with flat walls and few period features to give the room a focus. That is why the most likely wallpaper job here is one wall: the wall behind the sofa, the wall behind the bed, or the alcove beside a stair.
A single papered wall is a small job in a room this size, often one or two rolls, and it lets you use a bolder or more expensive paper without the cost of a whole room. In the smaller bedrooms we would steer you towards patterns with a modest repeat, because a large drop wastes a lot of paper over a short wall and the motif can get cut off awkwardly at the ceiling.
Making good fifty years of estate plaster
The plastered walls in these houses generally take paper well once they have been prepared, but most have been redecorated many times since the 1970s. The usual findings when we strip back are:
- Several layers of old paper, sometimes painted over, which needs scoring and steaming rather than soaking.
- Plaster that lifts in patches as the old paper comes away, especially near light switches and sockets.
- Filled holes from shelving and TV brackets that sit slightly proud or slightly sunk.
We fill and sand those, size the wall so the paste grips evenly, and where the surface is still uneven we hang lining paper first, cross-lined so the joints never line up with the finish paper. Thin or dark papers in particular show every dip in the wall without a lining underneath.
Cold walls on the shaded side of the slope
The estate faces north down the Nene Valley, and walls on the north side of a house stay cooler and dry more slowly. For wallpaper that matters in two places. Paste takes longer to cure in a cold room, so we keep the heating on gently and avoid hanging straight onto a wall that has just been washed or filled. And if a wall shows mould or condensation staining, papering over it only hides the problem until it comes through the seams. On those walls we treat the mould first, and in bathrooms and north-facing kitchens we would usually suggest a vinyl or paint-and-wipe finish rather than a traditional paper.
Papering between tenancies and in shared buildings
Private lets are part of the mix here, and a landlord refreshing a Southwood Hill terrace will often want lining paper and paint rather than patterned paper, since lining hides tired plaster and can be repainted for the next tenant. If you rent from Northampton Partnership Homes, at Southwood Hill or Blackberry Lane, check with them before booking, as changes to wall finishes usually need their agreement.
Many terraces share a parking court, so the pasting table and rolls come in by hand. We set up in one room, keep the paste and offcuts off your carpets and take the waste away with us.
You can read more about stripping, lining and pattern matching on our main wallpaper hanging service page, and see the other work we cover locally on the Briar Hill area page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
