Posted on: Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Rip it or strip it: paper for your wall

By Erin Crawford
Gannett News Service

Wallpaper: It's difficult to change and easily becomes out of fashion.

It's hard to apply and harder to repair.

Wallpaper has been completely swept aside by faux-paint fever in recent years, and anyone who has dealt with a room full of no-longer-fashionable paper may have a recoil-and-hiss reaction to a wallpaper sample book.

But we took another look at wallpaper and saw stuff any wall would be happy to wear.

Here are five reasons you should be in the first group.

1. Wallpaper does faux paint better than faux paint.

What takes four layers of colors, a box of stencils and sponges, and multiple days to achieve with paint can often be produced in less time with the right wallpaper.

Now wallpapers are attempting the same looks that elevated paint to its recent popularity: Faux animal skin, faux leather, sueded colors and pebbly textures are all available in wallpaper.

Real leather or textured fabrics and woven fibers can be applied and wallpapers at the more costly end of the spectrum sometimes have hand-stenciled patterns applied to them, just as a paint treatment would.

2. The application is easier.

Styles have gotten simpler with paper. Borders aren't as popular as they once were, and neither is mixing and matching papers. That certainly makes application easier.

New types of paper and application processes are also improving the situation for those who want a single paper on their walls.

Rippable wallpaper that goes on in pieces is one recent solution to that problem. Take PaperIllusion by Village. Rather than carefully aligning and pasting, PaperIllusion goes up in a tear.

The paper is meant to be ripped into random shapes. When layered, the pieces take on the appearance of marble.

3. Down in a flash. Almost.

Natural-fiber papers applied to a pasted wall are still going to try your patience when it's time for a change.

Otherwise, wallpaper has gotten simpler to change.

Purchasing a peel-off wallpaper allows you to change the room on the slightest whim. A strippable wallpaper, where a top vinyl coating peels off, leaving a paper backing that can be stripped easily with water, allows you to change the room if you're willing to invest a few hours.

New removal products can help your struggle with papers that don't bend so easily to your design moods.

Many products are now available to get paper off your walls. Among the more innovative are the Wallwik cloths, which hold moisture to the walls longer than a solution that's simply been sprayed or sponged on. After the cloths sit on the wall for about 15 minutes, the glue releases and the paper peels off.

4. Texture

Ralph Lauren Textures papers are part of a wave of nubby, woven and natural papers bringing back the textured look that was huge on walls 30 years ago.

Grasscloth papers are still better left to a professional than an inexperienced do-it-yourselfer. To apply grasscloth, paste is applied to the wall and the cloth is pressed onto the paste. Some of the fiber wallpapers can't come into contact with paste without risking stains.

Some papers are dramatically decorated with sand. These papers aren't easy to apply, either, but they add a rich texture to rooms.

5. As bold as you like it

Wallpaper is available in the same dramatic colors that homeowners have favored in recent years.

As for prints, everything from fanciful European papers to retro-modern hip prints to classic toiles are in.