Wallpapering & Wallpaper Hanging in Girton

Papering the walls of 1930s and postwar Girton

Council Tax records put around 420 Girton properties in the 1919 to 1939 bracket, with 340 of them from the 1930s alone. Plaster from that period has usually been painted, patched and papered several times over. Strip it back and you find old filler, blown areas and the outlines of previous papers.

We deal with that before any decorative paper goes up. Blown patches are cut out and made good, the wall is sized, and a lining paper is cross-hung so the joins in the finished paper never sit on top of the joins underneath. On a heavy or expensive design, that hidden layer decides whether the paper lies flat or shows every lump.

A wallpaper hanger for Girton owners who plan to stay

With roughly 71% of households owning their home, many Girton customers are choosing paper for the long term: a William Morris pattern in a hall, a grasscloth in a dining room, a mural in a child's bedroom. Simon, our wallpaper specialist, handles the papers that need the most care. You can see how a three-storey stairwell was tackled in our William Morris case study.

The parish has 12 listed buildings, including Girton College and the Church of St Andrew. If you live in a listed house, check with South Cambridgeshire District Council before stripping historic finishes, and we'll work to whatever is agreed.

How we approach wallpapering

For an interwar Girton room we strip with steam, scrape and wash the walls, fill and sand, then size and hang a lining paper horizontally. The decorative paper goes on vertically over it, plumbed from a true line, with batch numbers checked first and the pattern set out from the chimney breast or main wall so the last awkward join lands somewhere you won't notice. The full method, products and FAQs are on our wallpapering page.