How do you paint a hall stairs and landing?

Painting a hall, stairs and landing for a lot of people is a daunting task and too much for them to tackle themselves, so they call a professional decorator like myself to do it for them. A lot of people will not have the ladder to aid them to reach the tallest part, or the stairs are an awkward shape.

Having the right tools makes it safe and easier to do, safety should always be in your mind when painting and decorating but especially if you are painting and decorating your hall, landing and stairs. Falling off a ladder whilst working on a stairway can be very painful.

Painting a hall, stairs and landing

Painting a hall, landing and stairs is just like painting any other interior room, you start at the top and work down.

So, start with preparing the walls, filling and holes and cracks, then paint the ceiling and coving, if you have any. Paint the picture rail next, if you have one, then emulsion the walls, if you have a dado emulsion down to that, then paint the dado before painting the remaining walls below the dado rail. This will save the newly painted wood work getting splashed with emulsion.

Finally, paint the stair stringers (the bit that goes up each side), the spindles and handrail and skirting boards.

And don’t forget the loft hatch if it’s in the hallway.

Wallpapering a hall, stairs and landing

If you are going to wallpaper your hallway, landing and stairs it is similar to wallpapering and interior room, you do all the preparation first, then you paint the ceiling and coving, then paint any woodwork such as picture rail, dado rail and the the stair stringers, spindles and handrail and also the skirting boards.

Once all the paint is dry, the final job is to wallpaper your hall, landing and stairs.

Useful links

Below is a list of useful links you may find help you when either painting or wallpapering your hallway, stairs and landing.

• Wallpaper calculator
• Paint calculator
• Ceiling wallpaper calculator
• How to wallpaper
• How to wallpaper around a door
• How to wallpaper around a window or door reveal

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How to mix wallpaper paste

How many times have you mixed up wallpaper paste to put up that new wallpaper you just bought and end up mixing something that resembles lumpy porridge, jelly or water. The reason for this is you must have mixed it wrong.

So how do you mix wallpaper paste? Firstly you will need to gather the tools you require. You will need :

• A clean bucket
• Something to stir the paste such as a stick
• A sachet of wallpaper paste

Mixing the wallpaper paste

Take your clean bucket and fill it with water, the amount of water will depend on the type of wallpaper you are going to be hanging and how many rolls you are going to hang. It’s always easier to mix an entire sachet rather than trying to mix half as it’s not easy to get the ratio right, unless like me, you have mixed up gallons of the stuff!

Here is a guide to how much water to use and how many rolls you can expect to do with one standard sachet of paste.

Take the bucket of water and give it a good stir (not with the wife’s wooded spoon from the kitchen), next cut the top off the sachet of paste an tip it all in, now stir again one way then the other, do a figure of eight, do this for around 20-30 seconds.

Once the paste chips are all dissolved leave to stand for a further 90 seconds then give it a final stir before using.

Once mixed, paste will last for a few days in the bucket so you can come back to it cover it to stop anything dropping into it and come back to finish the job another day.

If you need to know how many rolls of wallpaper to buy, why not use our wallpaper calulator.

How to wallpaper around a door

Following from my recent post, wallpapering around a window reveal this post continues on from that and will show how to paper around a door.

Where to start wallpapering

Before you start papering you need to work out where the paper comes to at the door architrave, to do this measure your roll of paper, then start at one corner of the wall with the door in it and mark the sheets from the corner to the door, then over the door and to the other corner, does this work out OK? What you are looking for is not to end up with a sheet falling just short of the door architrave and you having to fiddle about putting in a small strip. You may have to start with a half sheet from the corner to avoid this situation or it may just work out OK if your following the pattern around the room.

Once you have worked out the best place to start, use a plumb line or a level to mark a vertical line from the ceiling to the skirting board ensuring you allow a little paper to return around the corner by about 1cm.

Putting up the first sheet of wallpaper

Once you have pasted the first sheet of paper, line it up with your vertical mark on the wall and smooth out the bubbles as you go, trim the top and bottom and wipe any excess paste off the paper, continue doing this until you reach the door frame. One thing I always find easiest is to take the sheet of paper that is going to start to go around the door architrave, hold it up and match any pattern then mark the paper on the inside of the architrave then take the paper to the paste table and cut the bit that would go over the door off, this saves getting paste all over your door and frame and also can make it easier to handle.

Continue reading How to wallpaper around a door