Dean hangs wallpaper in Ecton Brook, the 1970s-80s estate in NN3 5 about 4.1 miles east of Northampton town centre. Most requests are feature walls in compact living rooms and bedrooms, with old paper stripped and the wall repaired or lined first.
Flat walls that suit a modern paper
Ecton Brook’s houses are mostly 1970s and 80s Development Corporation builds, with plasterboard and blockwork walls inside. Compared with the old stone houses of Great Billing village across Great Billing Way, those walls are usually flat and true enough for a non-woven or vinyl paper to go up after sizing, without a full lining first. That keeps a feature wall to a short job. Where a wall has been patched many times, or an earlier paper pulled plaster away when it was stripped, we hang lining paper first so the repairs don’t show through the joins.
Deciding which wall to paper
Many living rooms on the estate have no chimney breast, so the usual spot for a feature paper isn’t there. In a compact terraced living room the choice often comes down to one of these:
- the wall behind the sofa, which is the one you see from the doorway;
- the end wall facing the window, which gets the most even light and shows a pattern clearly;
- the back wall of a through room, where a bolder paper can mark out the dining end;
- the wall behind the bed, often the simplest change in a small bedroom.
A large repeat can crowd a small room, and it wastes a lot of paper in matching. A smaller repeat or a textured plain often suits these room sizes better. The detached houses on Sheerwater Drive, Lakeside Drive and Ecton Park Road have bigger rooms, with space for a larger print or a fully papered dining room.
What usually has to come off first
Most homes here have had several occupiers, so you may find woodchip, paper that has been painted over, or vinyl with its face peeled off and the backing left on. Each one is stripped differently. Woodchip and painted paper need scoring and steaming. Leftover backing paper can look sound, then bubble as soon as fresh paste wets it, so we remove it rather than hang over it. Plasterboard needs a lighter touch with the steamer than solid plaster, because too much steam softens the board’s paper face. Any torn patches are sealed before the new paper goes up.
Narrow halls, rented rooms and stairwell drops
The terraced houses have narrow halls, and the flight of stairs starts almost at the doormat. Paper there has to put up with shoulders and shopping bags brushing past, so we suggest a scrubbable vinyl, or paper above a dado line with hard-wearing paint below. Stairwell drops are long, and the steps have to be set safely on the stairs, which in a narrow hall takes some planning.
Landlords with lets or HMO rooms on the estate usually prefer paint, because scuffed paint can be patched when a tenancy ends and a torn paper can’t. If a landlord does want paper, one feature wall in a tough vinyl is the practical limit.
Paper types, lining and how we match patterns are covered on our main wallpaper hanging service page. Before carrying rolls in from the nearest parking bay, we check every batch number matches, because a roll from a different print run can show a slight shade change once it is on the wall. Ecton Brook is around 4.1 miles out from the middle of Northampton, and the rest of what we do there is on the Ecton Brook area page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
