Wallpaper or paint: an honest comparison

We fit wallpaper for a living, so take this in the right spirit: there are walls we would tell you to paint.

Where wallpaper wins

Pattern and texture. Anything beyond a flat colour — a damask, a botanical, a fabric texture — is far easier and cheaper as wallpaper than as painted work.

A feature wall. One wall behind a bed or a sofa changes a room more than repainting all four. It is also the cheapest way to make a plain room look considered.

Covering small imperfections. A textured paper hides minor unevenness that paint would highlight.

Where paint wins

Damp walls. This is the important one. If a wall takes moisture — a shared bathroom wall, an outside wall that gets rain, a wall with any history of seepage — wallpaper will lift at the edges and may hold the damp against the plaster. Fix the damp first. Until then, paint.

Kitchens near the cooking range. Grease and heat are hard on paper. A washable paint is more practical.

Rooms you like to repaint often. Changing a wallpaper is a bigger job than a repaint.

Check your wall first

Before you choose a design, press your palm flat against the wall in a few places.

• Does it feel cold and slightly damp compared with the others?
• Is paint flaking or powdery when you rub it?
• Are there hairline cracks that have grown?

Any of those is worth sorting out before paper goes up. It is not a reason to avoid wallpaper for the whole house — just for that wall, for now.

Cost, honestly

For a plain single colour, paint is cheaper. The comparison only tips towards wallpaper once you want a pattern, because achieving the same effect in paint means stencilling or hand work.

What we do on a visit

We check the wall surface and moisture before quoting, and if a wall is not ready we say so rather than papering over it. A paper that lifts in four months helps nobody.