Yes and No

We’ve all heard it: the hell that is wallpaper removal in the great little house your friends just bought. Not to mention how stupefyingly hideous some of the patterns have been.

How OLD is that wallpaper?

Really old. We’re talking 1400′s in Europe. It turns out wallpaper is a several-centuries-old decorating technique created as an alternative to tapestries usually only owned by the very rich. It was a way to have some color & interest on the wall, as well as act as an insulator.

Originally wallpapers were created with stenciling using wood block prints or hand painted, or a technique called flocking, from the Encyclopedia Britannica entry:

flocking, a process whereby powdered wool or metallic powders were scattered over paper on which the design had been drawn with a slow-drying adhesive or varnish. The oldest existing example of flocked wallpaper comes from Worcester and was created in approximately 1680.

Machine printed wallpaper didn’t show up until 1840, and over 400 million rolls were sold during the roaring 20′s. It wasn’t until the 1980′s that it fell out of favor, as the modernist movement viewed “embellishment” negatively. The PC term for it today is “wallcovering” & includes all kinds of digital image applications and textures.

Back to the question.

While I personally prefer the flexibility and ease of updating using paint, wallcoverings are not quite as incorrigible as they were in the early years. Correctly applied, by priming and / or sizing the wall prior to installing the material, it *can* be removed somewhat less painfully. And there are plenty of modern pattern & texture options.