When to wallpaper or paint interior

[FloridaCrafter]

Hi!

Newbee question here...What's the best way to do the interior walls and why? I've seen that some folks decorate all the walls before gluing the shell and other folks glue the shell first. I'm working on the Orchid. Thanks!

 

[havanaholly]

It depends on the house.  I usually build from the first floor up, and decorate the same way.  Sometimes, however, the house goes together before I can do that,  which is one of the reasons I reinforce the corner seams with steel staples in addition to glue, as I flip the house around a lot to reach all the walls.

[Khadi]

I have done it both ways depending on the mood.  One strategy that I have learned has to do with wallpaper.  Cut the piece for the back wall a little long so that it wraps around the corners.  Then cut your sides the full length of the walls so that it overlaps the wrapped part.  This way you will not have visible seams.

I would paint your ceilings before you put it together.  Speaking as someone who always forgets to do that, it is a pain to paint the ceilings once you put the house together.

[havanaholly]

1 hour ago, Khadi said:

...wallpaper.  Cut the piece for the back wall a little long so that it wraps around the corners.  Then cut your sides the full length of the walls so that it overlaps the wrapped part.  This way you will not have visible seams...

Another trick I learned hanging 1:1 wallpaper is to line up the pieces for the side walls with the piece for the back wall that is cut to fit and has been fit in place and creased along the sides, to match any patterns in the corners (drop-matching in mini).

[Intrinsicat]

I'm big into painting all surfaced with Kilz primer before any other paint or wallpaper just to seal the wood. You can do that before you glue everything together. Like Khadi said definitely paint the ceiling ahead of time. I cut the wallpaper to fit before assembling, but I assemble before installing the wallpaper because I'm usually using tape lighting. That needs to be in place across the walls before wallpaper goes up. I also LOVE acid free Yes! paste, a recommendation from a wallpaper blog I read... it's amazing - no ripples or paper bowing.  I used regular scrapbook paper for my walls. I even found a scrapbook paper that looked like bathroom tiles, and covered it in a few layers of Modge Podge to gloss it up.  

[havanaholly]

Before I prime anything I mask  off areas I want to glue wood to wood, since bare wood adheres so much better to bare wood than paint to paint.  For a gloss finish I use lacquer or a semi-gloss sanding sealer.  Other members have posted that Mod Podge dries sticky.

[Medieval]

Holly, do you put the lacquer on painted surfaces too?

[havanaholly]

3 hours ago, Medieval said:

Holly, do you put the lacquer on painted surfaces too?

Only if that's the look I'm going for.