Why drying wallpaper quickly is the fastest way to ruin it, what the room should be doing for the first two days, and when you can put everything back
Twenty-four to forty-eight hours in ordinary room conditions. Keep the windows closed and the heating at its normal setting while it dries. The single most common cause of open seams is a wall dried too fast, not too slow.
What is actually happening
The water in the paste has to leave, partly into the wall and partly through the paper. As it goes, the adhesive bonds and the paper settles onto the surface.
Force that process and you get a surface that is dry while the bond behind it is not. The paper contracts slightly against an adhesive that has not yet gripped, and the result appears as a line at the seams a day or two later.
The timings
Touch dry: a few hours.
Properly dry: 24 to 48 hours.
Longer in a cold room, a room with no ventilation at all, on a solid external wall, or where the paste was applied heavily.
Heavy-grade paper takes towards the longer end, because it is twice the weight and takes more adhesive.
Peel and stick has nothing to dry. It is finished when it is hung, though it is worth leaving a day before hanging anything on it.
What to do while it dries
Close the windows. A through-draught is the fastest way to open a seam.
Leave the heating as it normally is. Not off entirely in a cold house, and certainly not turned up.
No fan heaters, dehumidifiers or hair dryers pointed at the wall.
Keep radiators off on any wall you have just papered, for 24 to 48 hours.
Leave the room alone. Bubbles and slightly raised seams while it is damp are normal and usually gone by morning.
When can I put furniture back?
After 48 hours, and leave a small gap behind it for the first few days so air can move.
When can I turn the radiators back on?
After 48 hours.
When can I hang pictures or fix shelves?
After 48 hours.
When can I paint the woodwork?
After the paper is dry, and mask carefully. Better still, paint the woodwork first.
When can I use the bathroom normally?
After two days, with the extractor on or a window open.
When can I judge whether something has gone wrong?
Not until 48 hours have passed. A great many faults that look alarming on the first evening have gone by the second morning.
Drying in a cold house
In an unheated room in winter, paste can take considerably longer and may not bond well at all. Bring the room up to an ordinary temperature before you start, keep it there steadily throughout, and allow the full 48 hours.
Steady is the important word. A room that is warm during the day and freezing overnight is worse than one that is consistently cool.
How long does wallpaper take to dry?
24 to 48 hours in ordinary room conditions.
Can I put the heating on after wallpapering?
Leave it at its normal setting. Do not turn it up, and keep radiators on freshly papered walls off for 24 to 48 hours.
Should I open the windows to help it dry?
No. A draught dries the surface before the paste behind it has bonded, and that is what opens seams.
How long before I can move furniture back?
48 hours, and leave a small gap behind it for a few days.
My seams look raised while it's drying: is that a problem?
Usually not. Damp paper is slightly expanded and settles as it dries. Judge it after two days.
How long does peel and stick take to dry?
It does not dry, because there is no water in it. Leave a day before hanging anything on the wall.
Poor customer service - rolls are only available as one off 10m runs, so if you need 11m.. unfortunately you’ll be paying double for a second roll! Unless your walls are 8m or less, I’d avoid. Wrongly assumed Claret & Key would be slightly more compassionate about the situation and even help with a slightly discounted second roll, considering we only needed 1m. How wrong we were!
Store owner replied:
Hi Emily,
I'm sorry to hear that you are disappointed with the service.
We sell our wallpaper by the roll, and we are unable to manufacture shorter rolls. This will be the same for most manufacturers as 10m rolls are standard, and most rooms require more than 1 roll to complete the job.
Thanks,
Claret & Key
I really loved this paper and thought it would look nice in my attic space. Delighted with the end result. Great service, excellent quality of paper and it really transforms the room. The eves are very low so the space was not utilised so making a feature with the wallpaper has created a cosy space to relax in. Thank you. M
Love this wallpaper. It’s just enough to show a statement but not so loud that it overpowers the space. Being able to pick the color is such a great thing also. You’re not stuck with 5 options so it can match your style and colors of your space. Would recommend to anyone looking for wallpaper. Very happy and my installer said its super easy to install this pattern.
This wallpaper is thick and sturdy. It’s very easy to work with and easy to apply. It was my first time hanging wallpaper and this paper was very forgiving. Great product!
I love how everything turned out and the price point was great. It was a bit challenging to piece together. Being from the USA, it was kind of a challenge to convert all the measurements to figure out how many rolls I needed and then where to cut the rolls to line up the images based on the design repetition. Luckily, I had plenty of wallpaper to work with on the roll.
Absolutely beautiful design and texture. Got the heavy duty wallpaper and put it up without any previous wallpaper experience and it went up very easily and beautifully. Definitely recommend.
Extremely helpful and supportive when I needed advice on measurements, with fast delivery too. The quality of the wallpaper is excellent, and I’m really pleased with the overall service. Highly recommended!
Gorgeous wallpaper, but the measuring option on the website left us short by 1 roll. Had to order another one but when it came the colour match was perfect. Thankfully I wasn’t paying for a decorator, otherwise would have been disappointed in having to pay for them to return. Otherwise great quality wallpaper and design compared to other similar products available.
First purchase from claret and key and truly impressed. Beautiful quality wallpaper. Pretty yet not too fussy. Easy to hang, cut and match. Would work in any room
Good tracking and delivery service too.
Definitely recommend and would reuse for future projects.
Everything went really good. Apart from the quality of the wallpaper which is fantastic, the staff were exemplary in their communications, friendliness and professionalism. They really did go the extra mile to help me.
A great experience all round.
Thank you.
Patrick
Lovely pattern and paper quality.
However, I wish that I had paid more attention to the roll width measurement.
For some strange reason your paper is narrower than a standard roll. This caused me a great deal of problems when papering my lobby, a small area but that made it more difficult because I was left with a narrow space to fill on 3 walls with a very long drop.
Although I love the paper I probably wouldn't use it again just for this reason.
Why you would produce paper not of a standard width is for you to know and me to wonder but it has made my small project very difficult.
Used this paper to make a dark study cosier. Absolutely loved the colour - the background is a perfect match to our existing panelling painted in Farrow and Ball Old White. First time using paste the wall and it was a revelation so easy and much less mess. Quality of the paper is great but noted the rolls are slightly narrower than most wallpapers. Loved the pattern match which meant little waste what we had left we used to recover some old box files which was easy. I thoroughly recommend.
