PAPERING A STAIRWELL
Even if the walls are flat, papering a stairwell presents problems. The awkward angles, height of the walls and long lengths of wallcovering make for special difficulties of access and handling, but you’ll find that these can be overcome.
Hanging wallpaper in an ordinary room is not too difficult. But with stairwells there are awkward corners and long lengths to cope with.
Gaining access
The chief problem in wallpapering a stairwell is that of gaining access to the walls you are papering. This is because of the height of the walls and the awkward angles involved. It is essential to have a safe working platform and to set this up in the right way to suit the layout of the stairwell and the way the stairs rise.
You can hire special platforms for decorating the stair/hall area, or use the components of a tower platform. Alternatively, you can use ladders and steps linked with scaffold boards. A particularly useful item of equipment is a hop-up, a small platform which you can make yourself.
Read : http://robuild.co.uk/painters_decorators/index.php/safety-first-in-stairwells/
Preparation
Before you start decorating, remove the handrail and any other wall-mounted obstacles so you can get at the wall. Then prepare the walls properly so the new wallcovering will stick.
Always remove any old wallcovering; some will peel off, although with most types you will have to soak and scrape them off. Once the walls are stripped, you can work out where to begin hanging. You should position the longest drop of wallcovering first, and to establish where this will be, measure the height of each wall in the stairwell. (You will need a long tape and someone to help you when you are measuring the wall in a stairwell.)
Then, starting as close as possible to this point but about 50mm away from any obstacles – such as a door or window opening – take a roll of the wallcovering you are going to use and move it along the wall to estimate where succeeding widths will fall. If, according to your calculations, there will be a join between lengths within 50mm of an external corner (at another window opening, for example), change your starting point slightly and measure again so you avoid this. Then mark off where this first drop will be hung.
When you have established where you will hang the first drop, use a plumbline to work out a true vertical at this point. Coat the line with chalk, pin it to the top of the wall and allow it to hang. Then, at the skirting, hold the plumb bob with one hand, pluck the string with the other and let it snap back against the wall to leave a vertical chalk line on the wall.
Alternatively, instead of coating the plumb line with chalk, fix it in place, allowing it to hang down, and then place a long straight timber batten so the edge is exactly against the line, and use the batten as your guide to draw a true vertical line down the wall. Remember to plumb a new line every time you turn a corner.
Hanging the wallcovering
The decorating sequence is the same as for any other area – see the techniques already covered. If the wall is bare plaster, start by applying size to the wall to prevent the paste soaking in.
Then measure and cut the wallcovering to length, remembering to allow for the angle of the skirting board if applicable, paste it and allow it to soak. If you are using a ready-pasted wallcovering, place your water trough in the hall or on the landing, not on the stairs where you are likely to knock it over.
Wallcoverings hung by the paste-the-wall technique are particularly easy to hang in stairwells, because you are handling lengths of dry wallcovering.
• Because the lengths of paper for the wall at the side of the stairs will all be of a different size – caused by the rise of the stairs – it is better to cut and paste one length at a time, unlike straightforward rooms where you can cut and paste several lengths at a time. Hang the first and longest length of wallpaper, using the vertical line you have marked on the wall as a guideline to get it straight. Then work round the stairwell from this length, making sure the pattern matches as you go along. If your staircase is curved at the bottom the wallcovering is likely to pucker as it fits around the curve.
To prevent this, you can snip into the overlap at the foot of the wall at intervals so the paper is more flexible in its fit.
Coping with long drops
A problem unique to stairwells is the length of paper you are handling – often as much as 4.5m (15ft) long. Apply paste liberally so it is ess likely to dry out before you have fixed the bottom of the length. (It’s worth keeping a small amount of adhesive ready to apply where the adhesive has dried out before the wallcovering is fixed.) Fold the pasted paper in concertinas and then gather up the folds and drape the folded-up length over your arm to carry it. Because the weight of the paper may cause it to stretch or tear as you are hanging it, try to get someone to help you take the weight.
Where there is no one available to help, you will have to sit on your scaffold board, or other form of support, and allow the bottom of the drop to unfold gently to skirting board level. Then you can take the top up to the ceiling and start brushing it into the correct place. Remember too, that when you are trimming along the bottom of a length of wallcovering that meets the staircase skirting, you will be trimming at an angle rather than horizontally as at the foot of a wall in a room.