Wallpaper or paint? Use this guide to help decide what is the best option for you.
Gone are the days where painting your whole property white was acceptable. Today, the interiors market is flooded with ideas on how to make your home look stylish from your bedroom to the kitchen. All you need to do is pick the era you are aiming for. Whether that be a French vintage feel, a slick contemporary look or a colourful one.
The walls of your home can either be painted or wallpapered. There are thousands of colours to choose from on the colour wheel and equally as many patterns for wallpaper. Painting and wallpapering both have their benefits, but how do you decide what is the best for you?
1. How much time do you have?
Removing wallpaper is tiresome. It is a gruelling task that takes sometime. You are likely to need some assistance from some professional tools too and you will need to be particularly careful not to damage the wall in doing so. That said, the beauty of wallpaper is that once applied it covers up walls that are less than perfect. A lot more preparation is need to get a wall ready to be painted. Holes and cracked need to be filled, dried and then smoothed out.
2. What room are you redecorating?
Wallpaper is durable, however it is not suitable for a room that is subject to a lot of moisture like the shower room or kitchen where the paper may peel from the wall due to the weakening of the adhesive. It is ideal for families as it is hard wearing, but should you children like to try out their latest drawing skills on the wall then paint is probably your best bet. Any damage to wallpaper especially chips means that the whole wall needs to be re-papered rather than just a quick coat of paint.
3. Is their a budget?
Wallpaper is typically more expensive than paint. Plus as wallpaper is having a bit of a resurgence there are many designers keen to produce their own wallpaper. Wallpaper that has been designed by a well known brand will have an even higher price tag. So if you are on a limited budget then painting is a more affordable option.
4. Who is the property for?
If this is for your own property then choosing a funky wallpaper or going bold with paint colours is an opportunity to reflect your personality. You can go as eclectic as you like. However, if this is a buy-to-let property in the Philippines, then you want to make sure you attract a wide range of tenants to generate a healthy rental yield. Therefore it is wise to play it safe and go a bit more conservative to ensure that you do not rule out any prospective tenants.
5. What look are you going for?
As wallpaper comes in some many designs, this is one way to adopt a new style in your home. You may love birds so pick a wallpaper teeming with wildlife. Plus with wallpaper no other artwork is needed for that wall which makes it decoration even easier. If you have an eccentric range of furniture it may be hard to match the pieces with a wallpaper design so stick with one colour paint colour instead.
6. Still not sure?
Simple. Combine the two. Wallpaper one wall and pick a paint colour for the remaining three walls. This is ideal if you have one wall that is in bad condition, if you are not brave enough to wallpaper the whole room or you have a budget to stick to.