Continued from page C16

plumb.

Use a 6-inch wide flexible drywall taping knife to help you trim the paper at the ceiling and where it touches woodwork. If the knife is new, take a metal file and round off the sharp edges of the tool. Failure to do this will cause the paper to tear if you slide the blade along the paper.

Before you hang a piece of paper, use the blade to scrape off any tiny bumps on the wall. These nibs will show through wallpaper and look like tiny pimples.

Don’t stretch the paper as you hang it. As you hang each subsequent piece, start applying the paper at the seam, matching it carefully to the one you have just hung, and smooth the paper out sideways and up and down. Don’t trap air bubbles in the paper as you install it. Use a special brush or plastic smoothing tool to smooth the paper. But don’t press so hard you squeeze out the liquid paste at the edges!

Be sure to take off all electrical cover plates, wall sconces and anything that you can easily remove from the wall that needs to be cut around.

This is how professionals get great results.

Be very careful when trimming paper around live electrical outlets and switches. Your razor knife can short out against live wires and screws. You can hurt yourself, ruin the paper or start a fire!

To get professional results at all inside corners, you need only about 1/4-inch of paper to wrap into and around the corner. This means you have to make a long vertical cut after the paper wraps around the corner; then you overlay the cut piece on the tiny sliver that wrapped around the corner.

Be sure to re-plumb this new thin starter strip so all subsequent pieces on that wall face are plumb.

I urge you to practice hanging paper in a very small room or closet first to see how it all works. You’ll never regret doing this practice exercise.

You need to get comfortable using the tools and seeing how to control the paper on the wall.