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Parthenon Restoration & Decorating
022 615 5816

One wall, or the whole room.

Wallpapering across Christchurch. Feature walls, whole rooms and lining paper. We make the wall behind it flat and size it before anything goes up, and we take old paper off properly rather than papering over it.

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  • Owner operated
  • Christchurch
  • Part of the Parthenon family

Where paper is turning up now.

Paper came back. On one wall behind a bed, on the ceiling of a small bathroom, down a hallway that has never had anything on it, and all three are different jobs.

A feature wall is the most common and the least forgiving, because a single papered wall sits next to three painted ones and every edge is on show. The wall has to be flat, because paper does not fill anything.

A whole room is easier in one way and harder in another: the edges stop mattering, the corners start to. An old house is never square, so we set the room out on paper first, which is how the compromise ends up somewhere nobody looks.

And lining paper, which almost nobody asks for by name and quietly rescues more tired rooms than the other two.

See the whole list

  • Feature walls

    Behind a bed, or down a hallway

  • Whole rooms

    Corners, pattern and where it lands

  • Lining paper

    One texture over a patched wall

Four jobs that all get called wallpapering.

They take different time, cost different money and go wrong in different ways.

Feature walls

One wall only

The quickest and the least forgiving. Three painted walls beside it puts every cut on show at the ceiling, skirting and corners, and the wall has to be flat because nothing disguises it.

Whole rooms

Corners, pattern

Easier at the edges and harder at the corners, because no house is square. Where the first drop lands decides where the last one meets it, so that is worked out before anything is cut.

Lining paper

Under the paint

Plain paper, and almost nobody asks for it. Hung over a wall patched into a map it gives the whole surface one texture, and then it is painted. It rescues rooms that would otherwise need a plasterer.

Taking it off

Steam and time

Usually the longest part of the job and almost always underestimated. What is under the old paper decides how it comes off, and nobody knows until a corner is lifted.

The paper is the easy part.

The wall behind it.

Everything that decides whether a papered wall looks right happens while the paper is still rolled up in the corner of the room.

Whatever is on the wall now comes off first. We steam and scrape rather than skimming over it, because paper on paper lifts at the seams and takes both layers. If somebody has painted over old paper that is a slower morning, and you hear before the day.

Then we make the wall flat. Not filled and left, flat: every ridge, patch and old seam sanded back until a hand finds nothing. Paper is thin and lit along its own surface, so anything under it reads from the doorway.

Then the size coat, one cheap sealing coat, invisible when it is there and the cause of two failures when it is not. Skip it on an absorbent wall and the wall drinks the paste and the paper lets go at the corners. Skip it on raw plasterboard and the paste grips so hard the next person takes the facing off.

Then the paper. Set out first, so the repeat lands where it should at the ceiling and in the corners. Butted seams, rolled rather than stretched.

How a job runs

  • Old paper

    We steam and scrape it, never cover it

  • The surface

    We sand it flat, not filled and left

  • The wall

    We size it, so it neither drinks nor grips

  • The pattern

    We set it out before anything is cut

  • The seams

    Butted and rolled, never stretched

Taking the old paper off.

This is the part that decides how long the job takes, and it is the only part nobody can price accurately until a corner has been lifted.

What comes off easily is paper hung on a properly sized wall by somebody who knew what they were doing. It comes away in whole drops, and that is not most walls.

What comes off slowly is paper hung straight onto unsized plasterboard, painted over, vinyl-faced so the steam cannot get through, or third layer down. Any of those turns a short job into a long one, and most of the extra time goes on the surface underneath.

So the honest way to price it is a range rather than a best case. If a room turns out worse than it looked, you hear it that day rather than at the end.

And sometimes the answer is not to strip it at all, the one case where leaving it is not a shortcut.

What happens on the visit

  • Best case

    Comes off in whole drops

  • Slow case

    Painted over, or vinyl faced

  • Worst case

    Three layers, onto raw board

  • How it is priced

    We lift a corner, we do not guess

A builder put his name to it.

Daniel Fridd runs Parthenon Construction and the sites he watched Bevan work on were his own. Paper hides the wall the moment the first drop goes up, so the opinion worth having is from somebody in the room before that.

“He's one of the best painters I've seen. Perfection. Takes proper care.”

Daniel Fridd, Parthenon Construction

Who you get

What people ask about paper.

Six answers, and the third one is the one people most want to be told they can get away with.

  • How long does a feature wall take?

    Less time than most people expect if the wall is sound and there is nothing to strip, and a good deal longer if it has to be made good first.

  • Do I buy the paper, or do you?

    Either. Most people choose it themselves because it is the part that is actually theirs, and we work out how many rolls the room needs, which depends on the pattern repeat as much as the wall area. Order the lot in one batch: two batches can be visibly different colours on the same wall.

  • Can you paper over what is there?

    Almost never, and the time it looks like a saving is the time it costs most. The exception is sound, well stuck, untextured paper being lined over, judged at the wall rather than on the phone.

  • Will the seams show?

    Not on a flat wall, with the seams butted and rolled rather than stretched to close a gap. We look at a paper job again the next morning rather than sign it off at the end of the day, because a stretched seam looks perfect wet.

  • What if I want it gone in five years?

    That is decided today rather than in five years, by whether the wall is sealed first. It decides whether the paper comes off in an afternoon or takes the wall with it.

  • Is wallpaper harder than painting?

    Different rather than harder, and less forgiving. Paint can be cut back and recoated. A drop hung crooked or cut short is a drop you have paid for, which is why setting out matters more than speed.

More questions

Lift a corner and find out.

Ten minutes in the room settles what is under the old paper and how flat the wall has to be, neither of which a photograph answers. Bring the paper you like and we will count the rolls.

Or ring 022 615 5816. There is no obligation either way and nobody will chase you.