How do I hang lining paper on a poor wall?

Lining paper evens out a wall's absorbency and hides fine cracks, minor texture and patchy repairs. It does not hide a bumpy wall, and hanging it on one makes the bumps more obvious rather than less.

What you'll need

• Lining paper in an appropriate grade
• Wallpaper paste and a bucket
• A pasting table and a brush or a roller
• A smoothing brush and a seam roller
• A sharp knife and a straight edge
• A plumb line or a spirit level

Step by step

1. Be honest about the wall.Lining paper hides fine cracks, small repairs and light texture. It does not hide undulations, blown plaster or a wall that is out of plane — those need filling or replastering first.
2. Prepare properly anyway.Fill the holes, scrape the flaking paint, sand the ridges. Anything you can feel with your hand will be visible through the paper.
3. Choose the grade.Grades run roughly 800 (thin) to 2000 (very heavy). 1200 or 1400 is the usual choice for painting over; 1000 is enough under wallpaper; 1700 to 2000 for a wall with real texture to cover.
4. Size the wall.Diluted paste or a proprietary size, brushed over the whole wall and allowed to dry. It reduces suction so the paper can be slid into position rather than grabbing instantly.
5. Decide the direction.Cross-lining — horizontally — is correct under wallpaper, because the joints then never coincide with the wallpaper's vertical seams. Vertical is fine and much easier if you are painting over it.
6. Paste and fold.Paste the paper evenly, then fold it paste to paste in concertina folds. Let it soak for the time the paper states — usually a few minutes — so it expands before it goes on the wall.
7. Let every length soak for the same time.Paper that has soaked longer has expanded more. Inconsistent soaking is why joints open on some lengths and not others.
8. Hang the first length to a line.A plumb line for vertical, a chalk line or a level line for horizontal. Every subsequent length follows the first, so the first one decides everything.
9. Butt the joints, never overlap.Bring each edge up to the last so they just touch. An overlap shows as a ridge through paint forever.
10. Do not stretch the paper to close a gap.A stretched joint contracts as it dries and opens up again. Reposition the whole length instead.
11. Work the air out from the centre.A smoothing brush from the middle outwards and downwards, so air and excess paste have somewhere to go.
12. Let it dry fully before painting.At least 24 hours, longer in a cold room. Painting damp lining paper causes it to lift at the joints and bubble.
13. Fill any open joints before painting.A very thin skim of fine filler over any joint that has opened, sanded flush. Do this after it has dried, not before.

Tips

• Do not paste over the ends of the roll's cut edge — the factory edge is straighter than anything you will cut and gives a better joint.
• Cross-lining is genuinely awkward alone. Two people, or a paperhanging trestle, makes a big difference on a long horizontal length.
• Lining paper is very cheap relative to the improvement it makes to a tired wall. It is one of the best value decorating jobs there is.

Common mistakes

• Overlapping the joints — The overlap is twice the thickness of the paper and it catches light from every angle once painted. It also cannot be sanded flat without cutting through the paper, so the only fix is to strip and rehang.
• Hanging lining paper over a bumpy wall and expecting it to hide it — Paper conforms to whatever it is stuck to. A wall that is out of plane will look exactly as bad afterwards, and the smooth uniform surface can make undulations more obvious in raking light.

If it doesn't work

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