Built to Last: The Beauty, Durability & Care of Wallpaper
Wallpaper has made a strong return to modern interiors—not just for its visual impact, but for its impressive performance over time. In this project, Hollyhocks by House of Hackney transforms the space into a living piece of art. Beyond the bold florals and craftsmanship, homeowners often ask the same practical questions: How long will it last? How do I care for it? And how does it compare to paint?
This guide answers those questions, with durability and maintenance in mind.
How Long Does Wallpaper Typically Last?
High-quality wallpaper, when professionally installed and properly cared for, can last 10–15 years or more. Designer wallpapers like Hollyhocks by House of Hackney are crafted with premium materials that resist peeling, bubbling, and edge lifting over time.
Unlike paint—which may need refreshing every 3–5 years—wallpaper offers long-term value. Proper wall preparation, precise alignment, and the right adhesive play a major role in ensuring longevity.
Is Wallpaper Washable or Easy to Clean?
Most modern wallpapers are designed with real life in mind. Many are wipeable or washable, meaning light marks, dust, and everyday smudges can be gently cleaned using a soft cloth or sponge.
For best results:
Use a damp (not wet) cloth
Avoid abrasive cleaners or scrubbing
Always test a small, hidden area first
With routine care, wallpaper maintains its vibrancy without requiring frequent maintenance.
Will Wallpaper Fade Over Time?
Quality wallpapers are produced using fade-resistant inks, helping them retain their color even in well-lit spaces. While direct, prolonged sunlight can affect any wall finish over many years, wallpaper generally holds color better and longer than standard paint.
Choosing the right placement and pairing with proper window treatments can further extend the life of the design.
Wallpaper vs. Paint: How Does It Hold Up?
When it comes to durability, wallpaper often outperforms paint:
More resistant to scuffs and minor wall imperfections
Holds its finish longer without touch-ups
Adds texture, depth, and design that paint can’t replicate
Paint may be easier to change, but wallpaper delivers lasting impact and a refined, finished look—especially in feature spaces where design matters most.
A Lasting Investment in Design
A Floral Statement in Motion — Hollyhocks by House of Hackney is more than a visual transformation. It’s an example of how wallpaper, when installed professionally, becomes a durable and low-maintenance design solution.
If you’re considering wallpaper for your home, proper preparation and expert installation make all the difference—ensuring your walls remain beautiful for years to come.
Thinking about adding wallpaper to your space? A professional consultation can help you choose the right material, placement, and finish for long-term performance and style.
Ever wondered why some wallpaper installations look seamless and luxurious—while others crease, lift, or look slightly “off,” even with beautiful material? The truth is, great wallpaper doesn’t just depend on the pattern you choose. It comes down to planning, precision, and professional hands that know how to navigate tricky corners, high walls, light reflections, and even the direction of natural patterns.
In this home (shown in the photos), what looks like a simple accent wall actually involved complex angles, pattern alignment, precise trimming around door frames, and working within a busy kitchen layout—all while ensuring every swirl and every bird matched perfectly. Here’s what goes into getting it right.
Choosing the Right Wallpaper Design
Consider the Scale of the Pattern
Large, sweeping patterns like the cloud-and-swallow mural in the photos can transform a room—but only if there’s enough wall space to let the artwork breathe. Oversized prints can look cramped in tight areas, while very small patterns may get lost in wide, open rooms.
Look at Lighting (Natural + Artificial)
As shown in the second image, this kitchen has recessed lighting and a skylight. Light affects how wallpaper colours and textures appear. Some patterns may create shadows or highlight seams depending on the lighting direction.
Think About Room Function
High-traffic areas like kitchens need durable, wipeable wallpaper. Powder rooms might call for moodier, richer tones. Entryways need patterns that can handle visual impact from multiple angles.
Check How the Pattern Repeats
Complex repeats—like swirling clouds or illustrated birds—require more material and expert alignment. If the design must wrap around corners, a pro will help estimate the right amount so there are no surprises mid-install.
What Proper Installation Really Looks Like
Seamless Pattern Matching
Look closely at the first image—the swallows and cloud lines match perfectly even along the tight inside corner above the door. This takes skill, patience, and a precise understanding of pattern repeat and wall irregularities.
Preparing the Walls
Smooth walls are essential. Any bumps or imperfections will show through high-quality wallpaper, especially light-toned designs like the one pictured.
Navigating Obstacles
The kitchen layout includes door trims, cabinets, and ceiling angles. A professional installer ensures clean cuts and transitions—no tearing, bubbling, or lifting edges.
Using the Right Adhesives & Tools
High-end wallpapers often need specific pastes and install methods (paste-the-wall vs. paste-the-paper). Using the wrong adhesive can lead to peeling within weeks.
Why Hiring a Professional Matters
1. Precision in Tight or Awkward Areas
Corners, trims, and angled ceilings can ruin a pattern if even 2–3 mm is off. Pros measure, pre-plan the layout, and anticipate tricky transitions.
2. Pattern Alignment is an Art
With illustrated designs, one wrong strip can throw off the entire wall. A trained installer knows how to map the wall before the first cut.
3. Protection of Your Investment
Premium wallpaper isn’t cheap—wasting material through trial and error is even more costly. Professionals maximize usage and reduce waste.
4. A Finish That Lasts for Years
A pro installation means fewer seams showing, better adhesion, and easier future removal. It’s not just about how it looks today—it’s about longevity.
Thinking about transforming your space with wallpaper? Whether you’re dreaming of a bold feature wall or a delicate pattern that wraps flawlessly around corners, a professional touch makes all the difference. At CAM Painters, we bring technical skill, artistic precision, and years of experience to every installation—so your wallpaper looks exactly as the designer intended.
Ready to start your project? Reach out today and let’s bring your walls to life.
Many people like to have wallpaper installed on the same wall as their TV is mounted, which is a great look for your Toronto home. But this begs the question, should you have the wallpaper installed first, or the TV mounted to the wall first?
To answer this question we have guest blogger Gordon Cameron from TEC.works taking us through the process of installing a TV wall mount on a wall that will be wallpapered. We don’t want any extra holes put in our wallpapered wall for fishing wires, so here is Gordon’s fool-proof method for ensuring a properly positioned TV that keeps all wallpaper intact:
Getting exactly the right position for a flat panel TV installation requires some planning up front.
Is the screen the right viewing height from your favourite chair?
How many other people join you for movie night, and where will they be sitting?
What about a sound bar? Sound bars typically work best mounted below the screen, but this could push the screen height up if there is a mantle. Speaking of sound, have you sorted the EARC (https://www.hdmi.org/spec21Sub/EnhancedAudioReturnChannel)? If you want good quality audio and depth, EARC is vital.
How are all the wires for the HDMI inputs, power and possibly an optical cable run from AV components to the TV? How will they be concealed? Do you need to buy some heatshrink sleeving for the cables?
You can get answers to some of these questions with a measuring tape, or even a masking tape outline on the wall. But there is no substitute for actually lifting the TV into the approximate position to get a feel for how it will fit with the room. Each of these tape outlines or temporary lifts is an opportunity to scuff up a beautiful wallpaper job. Here is what I’d recommend to get the TV installed where you want it, without damaging the wallpaper:
Determine the desired location for the TV, and then decide what sort of wall mount makes most sense. TV wall mounts can be mounted flat against the wall, tilt out a few degrees from the top, or even swivel and tilt. It all depends on your room and seating.
Mark the studs, install the desired wall mount and then hang the TV
Run all the cabling. Often there are several HDMI cables, power and possibly optical cables, and they all need to be concealed.
Once you are satisfied with the installation, remove the cabling and the TV
Loosen bolts or screws and lags and remove the wall mount
Have CAM Painters work their magic with the wallpaper installation
Install wall mount again into existing holes or lags
Install and level the TV
Rerun and conceal all the cabling
Order pizza and enjoy the movie!
Thanks Gordon for the great advice! Here’s a little information about TEC.works:
At TEC.works, we help solve technology headaches for consumers and small businesses. That might mean reviewing consumer bills for cell phones, Internet, TV packages, or home phones and finding less expensive options that are a better fit for your needs. It might mean installing a home theatre system, or a presentation screen in a retail outlet. It might mean troubleshooting WiFi signal strength in a dead spot at your home or business. We’ll find the right technology products or services for you, and then manage them professionally. Because you’ve got better things to do with your time.
So if you’re planning on having a TV and wallpaper on the same wall, why don’t you book a quote? With both us and TEC.works it will be a seamless process! Transform your home with lasting beauty!
Recently we transformed the fireplace in a loft in the west end of Toronto with wallpaper. This wasn’t a typical installation and it required more problem solving than a normal wallpaper installation. Let’s go through how we did it:
Material requirements
First, we had to make sure that we had wallpaper quantities properly calculated. The ceilings were 18′ high and it was a 15′ drop from ceiling to the top of the fireplace. Usually a double roll will do 3 to 4 drops (the distance from ceiling to top of baseboard), but in this case we were only able to get 2 drops out of each double roll. So, due to the longer drops we required more rolls of the wallpaper than a similar area with smaller drops.
The most obvious issue that had to be dealt with was accessing the two storey wall. If the fireplace wall was being painted we could just put up an extension to brush the top edge in and then roll everything else using a roller on an extension pole.
Extension ladders are problematic with wallpaper installations because it has to be set up to one side in order to avoid the path of the strip of wallpaper. This means that the installer has to lean far to one side in order to install a strip of wallpaper, an awkward position to say the least. However, if the painter or installer was to look into a website such as platformsandladders.com for other solutions to reach inaccessible places, they might find various mobile platforms that could be set up in such a way that could make the installation of the wallpaper, to be a much safer and easier process.
Step ladders are generally used on most wallpaper installations, which is fine on ceilings up to around 12′. This particular installation would have required a 16′ step ladder, which wasn’t practical to get through condo hallways.
Scaffolding was the best solution. The scaffold frames were 5’x5′, which meant that they could be easily maneuvered through the hallways, and we could have brought them on a service elevator if we needed to. Scaffolding, similar to that from Tiger Scaffolds, can help in many different ways during construction and is a must on any site or building structure. It keeps workers safe while enabling them to reach the highest points of a building. It can be used over and over again and can withstand all weather conditions. Not to mention, you can get scaffold security systems to protect people and buildings from accidents. If construction crews are looking for scaffolding services in Sheffield or any other area, they will need to do their research first to make sure they are getting good quality equipment.
3 levels of scaffolding were used, so the scaffolding height came to about 16′ when it was fully assembled. This is where our employees really found the best benefit of their scaffold tool belt.
Wallpaper Installation
Once we had the access issue taken care of, the installation was fairly straightforward. Each strip was hung by two installers, the first on the top platform and the 2nd on the middle platform. Once the top portion was put in place the top platform installer would descend the floor to complete installation of the strip.
Through proper planning we were able to take a complex install and turn it into a regular day at work. If you’d like CAM Painters to tackle your complex wallpaper installation why don’t you book a quote? We’d love to Transform Your Home With Lasting Beauty!
One of the things we’ve been doing more of the last few years is mural installation. Murals are a specialty subset of wallpaper and were traditionally very hard to source. They don’t just come in the form of wallpaper though. Some artists offer custom murals LA which are painted directly onto the wall, to show a beautiful image or text. Wallpaper is an easy option, but if you’re interested in getting a traditional route, contact an artist. Traditional paint stores with their books of wallpaper, just weren’t able to offer them. Now, however, with the popularity of online shopping, many websites specialize in offering wallpaper murals. In fact, some printers will make a custom mural from any digital image you can supply them!
What’s the difference between traditional wallpaper and a wallpaper mural?
Traditional wallpaper
The main difference is that wallpaper is a repetitive pattern, whereas a mural can be anything at all. Some popular murals can be city skylines, world maps, even a picture of a marble slab.
How to select a wallpaper mural
You want to make sure that the size of the mural will fit the size of your wall. If it’s too big for the wall you might lose some of the picture as it’s trimmed to size. If the mural is too small then it won’t fill the entire wall.
World map mural in a nursery
Therefore, you want to purchase a mural that’s bigger than the wall it’s going on. A good rule of thumb is to have at least a couple of inches of waste, but not more than a foot. Therefore, if your wall is 8’h x 10’w you’ll want something that’s in the range of 8’2″ to 9′ high by 10’2″ to 11″ wide.
Is there a different installation process?
Since there is no repetitive pattern to a mural, the picture is divided into numbered panels. The actual installation process is no different than normal wallpaper, in most cases it uses the same paste and the same techniques. However, there’s no room for error, because if a panel is ruined, there’s nothing to fix it with. Therefore, when it comes to the installation you want to select an experienced wallpaper installer, rather than a novice.
CAM Painters has taken on many mural installations and has the expertise to ensure your installation is done to the highest standards. Why don’t you book a quote? We’d love to Transform Your Home With Lasting Beauty!
I have a dark wallpaper to install in my Toronto home. I’ve heard that the seams can really show on dark papers, how do you prevent this from happening?
What is the issue with installing a wallpaper with a dark background colour?
The basic issue is that if some precautions are not taken the seams will look lighter than the rest of the paper. The overall look then becomes little thin white lines at each seam and not a consistent background colour.
Keep the seams tight!
When paste is put on the back of wallpaper, some wallpaper swells a little bit, then as the paper dries it can shrink back to it’s original dimensions. An inexperienced wallpaper installer might not account for this. In this case they might install the wallpaper at it’s most swollen state and then as it dries, it shrinks back and exposes a sliver of the wall underneath.
An experienced installer always read the instructions! The instructions will give how long to book the wallpaper (ie. let it sit so that it has a chance to swell and contract back). Some papers don’t swell very much at all.
This is all vital information to make sure that once the wallpaper is dry, the seams stay tight.
Paint a dark colour on the walls
Despite all efforts to keep seams tight, a good precaution is to paint the walls the same colour as the wallpaper background. Then if seams open up a little bit, it’s not revealing white walls, but walls painted the same colour, thus hiding the seam.
Colour the edges of the wallpaper
Regardless of the colour of the wallpaper, the backing of the paper is generally very light, This means that the edge of the paper is light as well. Sometimes this shows a little in the finished product, especially if the walls aren’t perfectly smooth. A good precaution is to colour the edge of the paper with a colour similar to the background colour, It can be done with a marker or pencil crayon when the paper is rolled up tight, this ensures that the colour only gets on the edge of the paper and not on the face.
In conclusion
A couple of simple steps will ensure that the seams of darker wallpaper will be nicely hidden. If you nave a dark wallpaper that you want installed (or any wallpaper for that matter) why don’t you book a quote? We’d be happy to Transform Your Home With Lasting Beauty!
