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How to Wallpaper a Chimney Breast

Applying wallpaper to a chimney breast might seem challenging, but it’s actually a lot easier than you might expect and there’s no real special technique to it. However, that’s typically only the case with regular plain wallpapers and if you’re using something that has a unique pattern or style to it, then there are a couple of tricks to make sure that you save time and money while making your room look fantastic.

Important Concerns

Here are the most important things to think about before you wallpaper your chimney breast:

• The chimney breast sticks out and is more visible, so what part of the wallpaper pattern do you want to centre?
• If the chimney sticks out, do you need to make adjustments to the repeating pattern?
• Depending on the height of your walls, you may need to make an adjustment to the cuts to ensure that the highlight of your wallpaper pattern is shown and not cut into due to the chimney
• Every wallpaper design has a different repeating point and it’s vital that you first look at how the wallpaper repeats so that you can cut and mark each piece to simplify the process.

Once you have these four concerns out of the way, it’s time to start covering your walls. There are two main methods of doing this; by starting at the centre of a section of wallpaper, or using the centre of your chimney breast and placing the first and second section on either side of it.

Method 1: Centralize the First Length

The first method requires you to have a section cut out that will be used as the centre of the chimney breast. This method is best for designs that involve complex or large patterns that you want to show off on your chimney breast. The first length of wallpaper you cut should have some kind of noticeable or obvious pattern for this to be effective.

1. Pick the centre length of wallpaper and cut according to the pattern you want to show. The width of this
2. Mark the centre of your chimney breast
3. Place the first length of wallpaper and position it centred on the chimney breast
4. The lengths to the left and right of the first length of wallpaper should now start to cover the entire chimney breast
5. You can now continue to cover the rest of the room in wallpaper

Method 2: Starting With Two Lengths

The second method requires that you centre the design of your wallpaper across two initial lengths of wallpaper. This is a much better option for  wallpaper designs that don’t rely on larger patterns as you get a much cleaner start with two pieces of wallpaper.

1. Cut and measure your wallpaper lengths
2. Measure the centre point of your chimney breast
3. Place a length of wallpaper on either side of the centre point of the chimney breast
4. Continue to wallpaper the rest of the chimney breast as normal

These two methods are great for different reasons, so it’s important to choose the right one based on the type of wallpaper designs you want to use.