Borders can provide an extremely sophisticated and elegant look to your home. They have the unique ability to give your room that personal touch. The actual process of applying the borders has never been easier, as almost all borders sold today are prepasted and can be applied on painted walls or directly over coordinated wallpapers for a real designer look. Here are the steps to follow for a beautifully bordered room:

Step 1: Plan Your Layout

The first consideration is where the border will be applied. Will you use it along the ceiling, as a chair rail, or to frame your doors and windows for an architectural effect? A rough sketch can help you visualize where a border would look best. Once you have determined where the border will be used, it's time to figure out how much to purchase.

To make your job go quicker and look more professional, please take the time to measure the area to be bordered first. It is a total pain to discover that you need more border in the middle of your project.

This next step is a simple one: make a sketch of the room to be bordered (see example below). Take the sketch you made, and place the measurements of your room accordingly.

If you are planning to install a border around windows and doors, allow yourself at least 2 feet extra for each door and 4 feet extra for each window to allow for mitering the corners. It is always best to over estimate your requirements, as any extra material can be used to decorate notebooks, lampshades, waste baskets, storage bins, dresser drawers, headboards, backs of book shelves, picture frames, hat boxes, toy boxes, etc.

Once you have determined how many yards/feet of border you need, consult the chart below to figure out how many spools you need to purchase. Our borders come packaged in 3.3 yard (10-feet) or 5 yard (15-feet) spools, depending upon the design. Use the table(s) below to determine how many spools you'll need to purchase based on room size. If you want to calcuate on your own, and you're using more than one spool, allow 1-foot per roll for overlap. To see how much a particular number of spools will cover:

(number of borders) x (length of spool in feet) - (number of borders - 1) = (how many feet will be covered)

Step 3: Gather Your Tools

You will need just a few tools to do the job. Some you may already have. You may acquire the others from your local wallpaper retailer or home improvement store. Here is a list of what you will need.

1. An all-in-one step border prep such as PREPZ™ from Zinsser or Border-Ease® from Roman Decorating Products.

2. Tape measure, level or chalk line: Use a tape measure to determine length of border needed. If hanging the border mid wall, mark the height and use a level or chalk line to ensure horizontal placement and positioning is correct.

3. Scissors, trimming knife, and a metal straight edge or a wide putty knife: The scissors are used for cutting borders to approximate length. After the border is in place, use a sharp trim knife and the straight edge as a guide to make mitered corners and to trim excess at the corners. (Sharp blades leave neat, clean trims.)

4. Sponge and pail: The sponge is used to smooth out the border and remove excess paste. The pail holds clean water for rinsing the sponge. Be sure to change this water frequently.

5. Pasting/Work table: Make sure you set up a large area for cutting, pasting and folding your wallpaper and borders -- a large kitchen table or a long work table with a plastic cover will work. 

Step 4: Prepare Your Walls

Wallpaper can't cling to greasy, dirty walls, old wallpaper or paint. That's why we can't emphasize enough how critical it is to have your walls properly prepared. Walls should be clean and dry. In a room where mildew occurs, wash the wall with a mixture of bleach and water. Rinse, let dry and apply primer.

In general, you should:

• Wash walls with a mild detergent
• Fill any holes or cracks in walls with spackling compound
• Sand lightly to remove any imperfections
• Wipe walls with a clean, damp towel to remove dust
• Prime walls with a primer-sealer and let dry (not necessary if using PREPZ™)

To remove old wallpaper for redecorating:

• Score the old wallpaper. If your wallpaper has a vinyl or foil covering, abrade the surface so moisture or remover can penetrate and help break down the adhesive. Score the surface with coarse sandpaper or an inexpensive wallpaper-scarifying tool (right).
• Loosen old adhesive. After perforating the paper, apply a liquid or gel enzyme-based remover, taking care to follow label directions. Alternatively, adhesive can be loosened with a steamer or a fine mist of hot water, but these methods are usually more painstaking (see photo at left).
• Remove the paper. Working from the top of the wall down, remove all paper and adhesive using a broad knife or wide putty knife (be careful not to damage wallboard). If there are multiple layers of paper, remove one layer at a time, following Steps 1 and 2.

We only covered the basics here. If you need more information, please take a look at "How Do I Prepare My Walls For Wallpaper?" on the National Guild of Professional Paperhangers, Inc. website: http://www.ngpp.org/consumers_wallpaper_faq.php#13 

Step 5: Install Your (Beautiful!) Borders

After the walls are painted and/or properly prepared, you can begin your installation. Our borders are pre-pasted, which means that paste has already been applied to the back of the border during the manufacturing process. The paste is allowed to dry before the borders are rolled and packaged. In order for the borders to stick to your walls, you have to activate the paste (make it sticky again). You have two choices here: bor

Method 1: Activate the paste with water.

Roll up border loosely (pattern inward). Soak for 10 seconds in water tray 3/4 full of warm water. Remove carefully from water tray, allowing excess water to drain into tray. Book the border, and let it sit for a few minutes. Booking means gently folding the border like an accordion, paste-to-paste. Be careful to not crease the border, as the creases will show. This allows the paper to relax, making it easier to hang. IMPORTANT: Do not use this method if you plan to hang your border over vinyl wallpaper (i.e. you are installing the border over a wallpapered wall instead of a painted wall). Use Method 2 (below).

 

Method 2: Activate the paste with an all-in-one step border prep such as PREPZ™ from Zinsser or Border-Ease® from Roman Decorating Products.

These products make border hanging quick and easy by eliminating the need for sizing, special adhesives and water trays. Specifically formulated to work over both painted walls and vinyl wallpaper, PREPZ strengthens the paste on pre-pasted borders to enhance adhesive performance, preventing curling edges, corners and seams. It also provides extra "slip" so there's more time to position and match patterns. PREPZ will not stain paint or wallpaper, like other adhesives can, and it makes removal easier at redecorating time. The convenient, patented sponge applicator allows you to simply roll PREPZ on the back of pre-pasted borders and hang. Plus, clean up is a snap with a sponge and water.

Begin by applying activator, and book the border as you apply. Booking means gently folding the border like an accordion, paste-to-paste. Be careful to not crease the border, as the creases will show. Once you have applied the adhesive, let the booked border sit for a few minutes. This allows the paper to relax, making it easier to hang.

Smooth the border in place with a damp sponge

Your house is constantly shifting and vibrating. Because of this, it is recommended that you run your next strip directly into the corner overlapping the prior strip by 1 to 2 inches using vinyl-to-vinyl adhesive or quality white glue. (This is not necessary if you're using PREPZ™.)Outside corners can simply be wrapped.

Planning ahead will help minimize seams, but if you find that it cannot be avoided, the best method to handle seams is to overlap both ends of the border about 2 inches, and carefully match up the pattern. Take a new blade and carefully cut through both pieces of the border where it overlaps using the straight edge as a guide. Then carefully peel away the extra material and you will be left with an almost invisible seam. If applying a wide border, a seam roller is recommended to smooth out the seam, but be careful not to press too hard.

As you can see in the illustration, chair rails are normally positioned about 1/3 of the distance from the floor to the ceiling. The general rule of thumb is 32 inches to the center of the border. Chair rails help give a cozier feeling to a room with high ceilings. In children's rooms, they provide an interesting, eye-level visual stimulus.

Step 9: Borders Around Windows and Doors

When installing a border around a window or door, it’s customary to work from left to right, much the same as we read. This has a more comfortable feel as the pattern runs up the left side, across the top, and down the right side of the frame. To properly install a border around a frame, you simply overlap the two ends (see illustration). You then line up your straight edge with the inside corner and the outside corner formed by the overlapping border (this is normally a 45 degree angle). Then, using a new blade, cut through both layers of the border, and gently remove the excess material.

Sit back and admire your work. You got skills!

For even more information on wallpapering, visit the Consumers section of the National Guild of Professional Paperhangers, Inc. website at: http://www.ngpp.org/consumers_wallpaper_faq.php 

This guide is an adaption of one created by the publishers of The Wallpaper Guide, which can be found at http://wallpapernewsonline.com/custom/Borders.html with additional information from http://www.brewsterwallcovering.com/HowTo/prepare.aspx, http://www.hometips.com/articles/wallpaper_removal.html, and http://www.wallpaperstogo.com/howto_prepare.htm.