Guide to Vintage Wallpaper

All of the vintage wallpaper patterns in our collection are authentic, old stock rolls actually printed between the 1930s and 1970s. 


They are rare and in limited quantity


Most of our vintage wallpaper is sold by the "double roll," which is the standard industry name for one full bolt of paper. One double roll covers at least 50 square feet of wall space after trimming and matching the pattern. (Exceptions: some rolls are actually "european rolls" which only cover 35 square feet while others are "triple rolls" which cover at least 75 square feet. The type of roll and amount of coverage is noted on each individual listing.)


All of our wallpapers require additional paste/adhesive to hang. For paper patterns, use a traditional wheat paste labeled for hanging wallpaper, which can be found easily online. (We recommend Golden Harvest.) For vinyl patterns, any adhesive labeled for hanging wallpaper will do, and you can find them at your local hardware store. 


Most of the patterns we sell are colorfast, meaning that they will not bleed when hung. Some papers printed before 1940 are not and may slightly smear. With these older papers, you can test an inconspicuous area of the paper to see if any color rubs off when dampened. If so, you may want to apply a spray matte fixative to the front of the pattern before hanging each strip. This will set the color in place. Otherwise, non-colorfast papers can still be hung normally, just take extra care not to get any paste or water on the front.

 

Most of our papers have both left and right selvage edges. The paper's width does not take into account selvage edges as these will need to be trimmed and/or overlapped when hanging. 


Our papers come in all different textures and thicknesses, but all are fit for hanging. Vintage wallpaper becomes more pliable and easier to work with when an adhesive is applied, so they are quite friendly to use.