Determining seam placement of the wallcovering before beginning can affect the ease of the installation. This process, called engineering the room, helps eliminate waste mistakes and ensures that seams will be placed in the least conspicuous places in the room. This process should be conducted prior to installation.
Things to consider when planning the hanging are:
- The placement of the pattern so it is pleasing to the eye
- Focal points, such as accent walls, border placement, arrangements of doors and windows, etc.
These factors affect seam and pattern placement and also determine starting points, ending points, and area of mismatch.
The most likely point to start the engineering process should be the area of the room that will cause the most difficult situations. Once this area is planned, seam placement can be established in two different directions, working from the problem area back to the ending point. By determining where every seam will fall before the wallcovering job begins will eliminate having a seam fall in an undesirable place and minimize the amount of waste during installation.
A rule of thumb is to try to avoid having a seam fall less than 2 inches next to an obstacle like a window, door or corner. In some rooms, this may not be possible, but engineering will eliminate as many of these situations as possible.
While engineering a room, pattern placement also needs to be noted. Be sure to plan pattern placement so that the design falls at specific points on the wall that are aesthetically pleasing. Areas that need to be watched are ceiling line (do not cut a design element in half), chair rails (same as ceilingline), door/window headers and dados (areas above cabinets), etc. Occasionally pattern placement is more important than seam placement. In this case, the design element should be placed where it will be most
Content Provided by the Wallcoverings Association (WA).
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