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View GalleryOlder homes are wonderful, but they don't decorate the same way as new builds. Here's what we've learned about wallpapering, painting and preparing period properties properly.
There's a particular kind of phone call we get fairly regularly. It usually starts something like: "We've just stripped the wallpaper in the front room and the wall underneath is… not great." Sometimes it's a sandstone bay window that's never been properly sorted. Sometimes it's a chimney breast with three different layers of paint, lining paper and what looks like 1970s woodchip clinging on at the edges.
Older homes have proportions and details you just don't get in a modern build — but they don't decorate the same way, and a lot of the standard advice online is written with new-build plasterboard walls in mind. Here's what we've learned from decorating interiors in period properties, and what to expect if you're planning a redecoration.
The first thing that surprises people stripping a period property is what they find underneath. A typical stone-built terrace from the late 1800s might have:
None of this is a problem if you know what you're dealing with. It is a problem if you start putting modern materials onto old surfaces without thinking it through. Modern emulsion on top of distemper, for example, will lift off in sheets. Vinyl wallpaper trapping moisture against a lime-plastered wall causes damp problems that didn't exist before you started. This is why our service approach on older homes always starts with a proper survey rather than a quick look and a price.
For most period properties we work on, the honest answer is: line the walls before you do anything else. Good quality lining paper does several jobs at once. It evens out the surface so paint or wallpaper goes on properly. It hides the kind of minor cracks and imperfections that you'll never fully fill out of an old wall. It gives you a consistent surface to paper or paint over without the underlying wall affecting the colour.
In older houses with breathable lime plaster, the right lining paper paired with breathable paint actually helps the wall continue to manage moisture properly. We tend to use a heavyweight lining — usually 1400 or 2000 grade — hung horizontally under wallpaper, or vertically under paint. It's an extra step and an extra cost, but in a 150-year-old house it's almost always worth it.
Period rooms have proportions that make modern busy wallpapers look wrong — high ceilings, tall windows, generous skirting and picture rails. Patterns that work in a new build can feel cramped in a Victorian sitting room. Our wallpapering service covers everything from feature walls to full-room hangs, and a few things tend to work well in older homes:
Bigger pattern repeats generally read better than small busy prints in tall rooms. The scale of the wallpaper needs to match the scale of the room.
They work in period rooms, but only if the room has a clear focal point already — usually a chimney breast or an alcove. Random feature walls in older homes tend to look forced.
The old embossed papers are still a sensible choice for hallways and stairwells in period homes, and they take paint beautifully — far more durable than modern equivalents.
Brands like Farrow & Ball, Little Greene or Fenwick & Tilbrook sit well against original features. If a property has heritage details, they aren't worth fighting against.
Period properties usually have a lot of original woodwork — skirting, architrave, picture rails, panelled doors, sash windows. Repainting it properly is a much bigger job than it looks. Old gloss yellows and gets brittle over time, and you usually need to sand back, fill, prime and finish in multiple coats.
We almost always recommend water-based satin or eggshell rather than traditional oil-based gloss for period woodwork. It dries faster, doesn't yellow, and the finish on properly prepared old timber is excellent. For panelled doors and large runs of joinery, spray painting gives a noticeably finer finish than brush and roller, and is worth considering on the right project.
For sash windows in particular — and there are still a lot of original sashes in service — masking up properly and getting a clean line where the sash meets the frame is the difference between a job that looks professional and one that looks like a quick weekend redecoration. Exterior woodwork on period homes needs particular care because the timber is often old, sometimes rotten in places, and won't hold paint properly without proper preparation first.
Period properties almost always need a bit of remedial work alongside the decorating. We handle this as part of the job through our maintenance and repairs service, so you don't end up needing two trades on site.
Sorting these properly before painting is what separates a job that lasts five or ten years from one that looks tired again in two.
A reasonable number of older properties are either listed or sit in designated conservation areas. If yours is, exterior changes (including paint colour) usually need consent, some interior original features may be protected, and modern materials may not be appropriate even where they're not strictly forbidden.
Before you start: A quick call to your local conservation officer before starting external work saves a lot of headaches. We can advise on this as part of the quote — we've worked on enough listed and conservation properties to know what's likely to be a problem.
When we come out to look at a period property we tend to spend longer at the survey stage than we would on a modern home. It's not that the work is harder; it's that what's behind the wallpaper, behind the paint, and behind the skirting board genuinely affects how the job needs to be priced.
From single rooms to full period property restorations
A single room, a hallway and stairwell, or a full redecoration — older properties are some of the most satisfying work we do. We'll take the time to do them properly.
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