We hang wallpaper in Harlestone, a village in NN7 about 4.3 miles north-west of Northampton. In the older lias-stone cottages the walls are rarely flat, so most papers go over a lining layer, while the Victorian and Edwardian brick houses suit period patterns.
Why cottage walls here usually get lined first
A wallpaper only looks as good as the wall behind it. In Harlestone’s late 17th and 18th century cottages, that wall is solid lias stone with old plaster on the inside face, and old plaster is seldom straight. Over three centuries it has been patched, chased for wiring and painted many times. Hang a printed paper straight onto it and every hollow shows as a shadow, every bump catches the light, and the seams open where the wall dips.
Lining paper fixes most of this. Hung horizontally, so its joints sit across the joints of the finish paper, it evens out minor unevenness and gives the top paper a consistent surface to grip. On the very uneven walls we may suggest a heavier grade, or two layers on the worst wall.
The paste matters too. If the plaster is lime, we keep to papers and adhesives that don’t seal it completely. A heavy vinyl over a lime wall in a solid-stone house can trap moisture and lift at the seams. A paper-backed or non-woven design is often a safer choice, and we’ll talk it through before you order rolls.
Pattern matching when nothing is plumb
In a cottage where the ceiling line drops by a few centimetres across a room and the corners lean, a bold geometric paper will show every inch of it. We set out from a plumb line, not from the corner, and decide where the pattern breaks so the mismatch falls somewhere you won’t look at first: behind a door, or in the corner by the chimney breast.
For these rooms we often steer people towards small, busy or irregular patterns, plain textured papers, or a paper on one wall only. Large stripes and precise grids suit the Victorian and Edwardian houses much better, where the brick walls carry conventional plaster and the corners are closer to square.
Period papers for Port Road and the Edwardian semis
Upper Harlestone has a Victorian brick terrace on Port Road with formal front gardens, and a group of gable-fronted Edwardian semi-detached cottages. These are the houses in the village that suit period wallpapers most naturally: damask, trellis and small floral prints below a picture rail, or a dado-height paper with paint above. Their walls are usually sound enough to take a good paper with only a lining layer where earlier stripping has left damage.
The 1950s brick houses and the modern homes on Harlestone Road and Glebe Lane are the most straightforward walls in the parish. Here it’s usually a case of stripping, filling and hanging, and feature walls in contemporary designs work well.
The six 1940s Swedish Houses near the green are timber-clad prefabs. Their interiors aren’t recorded in the sources we use, so we look at the wall construction before suggesting any paper.
Stripping old paper in a listed building
Listing in Harlestone, which covers 49 buildings across the parish, reaches inside as well as out. Stripping modern paper and hanging new is normally fine, but if old layers reveal historic decoration or the plaster underneath starts to come away, we stop and tell you. Some layers are worth recording or leaving in place, and taking off original lime plaster could need consent from West Northamptonshire Council.
We steam gently on old walls, because lime plaster softens faster than gypsum and gouges easily. Full details of the stripping, lining and hanging process are on our main wallpaper hanging page, and you can read about the rest of the village’s houses on our Harlestone area page.
Last updated by Dean, DH Painter & Decorator.
