6 min read
The wallpaper vs paint question comes up in nearly every Dublin decorating consultation, usually about one feature wall in a living room or hallway. Both are right in different places: paint is cheaper, faster and easier to change, while wallpaper adds depth, pattern and texture that paint cannot reproduce. Here is how we advise customers to choose.
Where paint wins
Paint is cheaper per square metre, much faster to change, easier to touch up after a knock, and far more forgiving in kitchens, bathrooms and utility rooms where moisture and cleaning are constant. If you like changing colour every few years, or you are preparing a rental or a house for sale, paint is almost always the right call.
Where wallpaper wins
Wallpaper adds something paint cannot: pattern repeat, texture and scale. A chimney breast, a bedroom headboard wall, a hallway or a downstairs WC can be transformed by one paper in a way that no colour achieves. Heavy embossed and lining papers also hide imperfect old plaster better than emulsion, which highlights every ripple.
Modern non-woven papers are also far easier to remove than the vinyls of twenty years ago, which removes the main historical objection to hanging paper at all.
- —Feature walls and chimney breasts — wallpaper
- —Whole-house repaints and rentals — paint
- —Bathrooms and splash zones — paint, or vinyl paper away from water
- —Uneven old plaster — lining paper then paint
The combination most people actually want
In practice the best result is usually both: paper one wall and pull a colour out of the pattern for the remaining walls and woodwork. It costs a fraction of papering a whole room, it is easier to live with long-term, and it reads as a designed room rather than a decorated one. We do this constantly across Dublin and North County Dublin.
Frequently asked questions
- Is wallpaper more expensive than painting?
- Per wall, usually yes, once you add the paper itself and the extra preparation. On a single feature wall the difference is small relative to the visual impact.
- Can you wallpaper over painted walls?
- Yes, provided the paint is sound and the wall is filled, sanded and sized. Glossy or flaking paint must be prepared first or the paper will lift.