Decorating an interior room, and in which order

The order of decorating an interior room depends on what you are doing in the room.

For wallpapering:

When you are wallpapering a room, either the entire room or a feature wall the process is the same. If you are doing a feature wall also read the next section for emulsion.

Prepare the wall, first remove any old wallpaper and borders and fill any holes and cracks in the wall.
Paint the ceiling and coving/cornice.

Now prepare all the woodwork such as windows, doors and skirting boards and paint them with your chosen finish (Gloss, satinwood or wood stain).
Now everything is painted you can hang your wallpaper.

The theory here is painting everything first before you wallpaper thus eliminating any risk of getting paint on your expensive wallpaper!

Note: If the wallpaper is to be emulsioned such as Anaglypta prepare the walls as before and hang the wallpaper, then treat the room as if you are to emulsion it.

For emulsion:

As with wallpapering you need to prepare the room first, firstly remove any existing wallpaper and borders.
Next if you have removed wallpaper and borders wash the wall down to get rid of most of the wallpaper adhesive. Let the walls dry.
Rub the walls down.
Paint the ceiling and coving/cornice next.
If you have a picture rail paint above this next, then you can paint the picture rail in your chosen finish (Gloss, satinwood or wood stain). Now continue with the emulsion (if you have a dado rail do the same as the picture rail, then emulsion down to the skirting boards).
Finally, paint the skirting boards.

The theory behind this is start at the top and work down, by painting the picture rail and dado rail as you go saves you having to ‘cut in’ and run the risk of getting runs or an uneven line on your emulsion.