Thinking about doing a spot of decorating? Recently painted the outside of your home and now want to brighten up one of your rooms, or maybe even the whole interior? Well then, you’re probably wondering whether paint or wallpaper is the better choice. The answer depends on what you’re hoping to achieve, what your needs are the time you have available.

Here are our thoughts on both, the good bits and the bad bits. So you can make a more informed choice.

If you need some help with your painting and decorating, Local Heroes can help.

Wallpaper

There are a lot of good reasons to pick wallpaper. First of all it is incredibly versatile. You can do a lot with wallpapers, and choose from a suite of colours, textures and patterns – even mixing and matching with different walls or parts of the same wall. All of which adds up to a lot more choice when it comes to creating your perfect space.

On a similar note it is increasingly possible to customise wallpaper with your own designs, making it the best option if you want a space that is truly unique to you and your tastes.

It’s also durable, when put up correctly and cared for. Wallpaper can easily last 15 years without needing to be replaced. And this feature makes it cost effective. The upfront cost is bit more, but there’s a long term saving to be made if you utilise its full lifespan.

There are drawbacks though. Wallpaper is tough to put up, taking time and precision. And often the wall underneath needs to be prepped – smoothing it out and plastering cracks or holes.

And matching old wallpaper designs can be tough. If you need to touch a room up 10 years down the line there’s no telling if you’ll be able to get the same wallpaper – so we recommend buying spare if you decide to paper a room.

Buy spare wallpaper for fixing or touching up at a later date

The final consideration for wallpaper is humidity. Wallpapering a bathroom or even a kitchen is a bad idea, because frequent humidity will destroy the paper and cause it to peel.

Paint

Paint has a lot of good qualities. It’s a practical, cheap and an easy choice. Paint is always readily available in a wide range of colours, and painting walls is a simple task. Paint can also cover up flaws on walls when applied properly, making it a great choice for a quick fix, especially in older properties.

It’s also quick to change. If you want to change your rooms more regularly, a new coat of paint is always easy to apply in a day or two.

But there are still downsides of using paint. It’s messy, for one. There’s always a risk with paint that you’ll splash it on furniture if you aren’t careful, and it can be very difficult to get those stains out.

It also doesn’t last as long as wallpaper – paint fades fairly quickly and will need touching up regularly in order for it to look its best.

And lastly it doesn’t offer the same customisation options as wallpaper does. Paint by and large only comes in plain, flat colours. Which doesn’t have to be a negative, but does limit the effects you can achieve across a whole room. Although strong flat colours can also be seen as a more effective blank canvas, giving you more leeway to show your personality through the furniture and decorations of a room.