Which option is better for wall decoration — wallpaper or painting

This ques­tion is per­haps most often heard in the imple­men­ta­tion of repairs in res­i­den­tial premis­es. Each of the mate­ri­als has its own char­ac­ter­is­tics and, of course, dis­ad­van­tages. And, with­out hav­ing your own expe­ri­ence with such a fin­ish, it is dif­fi­cult to make a choice in favor of one of them. What, after all, is bet­ter for dec­o­rat­ing walls — paint­ing or wall­pa­per? Our experts have the answer to this ques­tion.

Answering important questions

The dura­bil­i­ty and appear­ance of the fin­ish to a large extent depends on the cor­rect choice of a suit­able fin­ish­ing mate­r­i­al for the walls, which will affect the inte­ri­or of the room as a whole. If you use the ser­vices of a pro­fes­sion­al design­er, you don’t even have to solve a dilem­ma like which option is bet­ter — paint­ing or wall­pa­per. But if you plan to car­ry out repairs your­self, you will have to take the issue seri­ous­ly.

First of all, you need to under­stand that there is no tru­ly right deci­sion when choos­ing a suit­able fin­ish option. But in order to choose the opti­mal mate­r­i­al, try to con­sid­er the fol­low­ing fac­tors:

1. What is the bud­get — inex­pen­sive wall­pa­per and paint are not rivals, for exam­ple, vinyl wall­pa­per;

2. Who will design the inte­ri­or design — a pro­fes­sion­al or the own­er of the house;

3. Who will per­form the work — a spe­cial­ist or a land­lord;

4. What is the shelf life of the prod­uct planned — wall­pa­per and paint sug­gest a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent oper­a­tional life;

5. The mate­r­i­al from which the walls are made — tex­tured options, for exam­ple, only paint can be empha­sized favor­ably.

Advantages and disadvantages of wallpaper

In this case, it is nec­es­sary to take into account a num­ber of impor­tant fac­tors.

Surface preparation

The process of dec­o­rat­ing the walls with wall­pa­per is quite sim­ple and requires only care and patience. But prepar­ing the sur­face for stick­ing is much more com­pli­cat­ed and time-con­sum­ing (espe­cial­ly if you need to remove old wall­pa­per).

Material strength

Wall­pa­per is a mate­r­i­al of rel­a­tive strength, so it is dif­fi­cult to con­sid­er it durable. The aver­age shelf life of a prod­uct is no more than 5–7 years, vinyl wall­pa­per, for exam­ple, will last up to 10 years. Wall­pa­pers are great for hid­ing minor wall sur­face defects, but they quick­ly get dirty, wear out, fade, los­ing their pre­sentable appear­ance.

Material safety

Wall­pa­per man­u­fac­tur­ers offer con­sumers a vari­ety of options for prod­ucts made from hypoal­ler­genic mate­ri­als. They are com­plete­ly safe for all house­holds (includ­ing four-legged ones), but pro­tec­tion from the lat­ter can­not be guar­an­teed.

special design

A vari­ety of pat­terns, pat­terns, tex­tures and col­ors allows you to choose the best option for any inte­ri­or.

About air humidity

With a mod­er­ate lev­el of humid­i­ty in the room, the wall­pa­per “feels” quite com­fort­able. In addi­tion, they have suf­fi­cient through­put, pro­vid­ing air access to the walls (they are not afraid of mold). But exces­sive humid­i­ty for wall­pa­per is detri­men­tal.

Advantages and disadvantages of painting

For those who want to opt for paint­ing the walls instead of wall­pa­per­ing, it will also not be out of place to take into account a few points.

Surface preparation

Prepar­ing the work sur­face before paint­ing is a very time-con­sum­ing and rather com­pli­cat­ed process that requires care­ful exe­cu­tion and con­sid­er­able costs. On the oth­er hand, with prop­er work, you can get per­fect­ly smooth, durable walls, devoid of the slight­est cracks.

Subtleties of care

Paint­ed walls do not accu­mu­late dirt quick­ly, are easy to clean, and can be washed with­out fear of dam­ag­ing the coat­ing. In addi­tion, if you wish, you can peri­od­i­cal­ly update the paint lay­er or even choose any oth­er col­or — the wall will no longer require prepa­ra­tion, just walk with a roller.

Color Variety

Paint­ing the walls, of course, is the widest scope for imag­i­na­tion. You can not lim­it your­self in shades. The main thing is to accu­rate­ly choose the right one for your inte­ri­or. And if you don’t have what you need in any cat­a­log, you can turn to pro­fes­sion­als — they will cre­ate a shade espe­cial­ly for you.

Paint and interior change

If fre­quent­ly changing/rearranging fur­ni­ture or updat­ing the decor for your home is not uncom­mon, wall paint­ing is the per­fect solu­tion. The col­or­ing com­po­si­tion guar­an­tees an excel­lent appear­ance of the sur­face in any part of it and, in which case, it is not nec­es­sary to close the some­how designed areas that were hid­den behind a cab­i­net or a pic­ture, as is the case with wall­pa­per, for exam­ple.