Style: Wallpaper borders

Wallpaper is expensive, especially if you want to do an entire room. You, however, do not have to wallpaper an entire room or replace furniture and carpets to get a dramatically new look.

You only need wallpaper borders, a finishing touch that will draw the eye wherever you want the visual focus to be.

So stop lamenting about your boring walls. Get creative and use your flair for interior décor to add colour to your walls.

Wallpaper borders can be used in any room of the house. It is placed either through the middle of a wall or about three feet from the floor so that it separates the top of the wall from the bottom.

• You can use wallpaper borders to give the appearance of a high wall by placing the border a foot from the ceiling.

• If you have crown moulding in your room, adding wallpaper border just beneath it or on the ceiling above the moulding enhances the beauty of the moulding.

• How about the perimeter of the ceiling? Placing a border on the perimeter of the ceiling creates an effect that holds an entire room together. So, give people a chance of ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ in admiration of your ceiling since it is an unexpected delight.

• Wallpaper borders also look great around a mirror, a doorway, a picture or around an object you border above the lower woodwork in a room is also an option.

• Let your imagination guide you. You could combine two borders, a wide one and a thin one. You can also create your own custom border by mixing and matching designs and widths and placing them adjacent to one another.

Wallpaper borders come in different designs and texture. There are those that are flowered, with cartoons for children’s rooms, striped or with culinary patterns for the kitchen. Their width also varies, with the general ones being about eight inches.

It is not difficult to put them because most are self-adhesive (peel and stick) you just have to peel off the backing and attach it to the wall.

If you make a mistake and realise it is not well put, you simply remove it and realign it. There are also those that require wallpaper glue. The glue is available in hardware stores.

They are available in most interior décor shops; and come in varying prices depending on the quality.

If you have no idea how to attach them, the shops have specialists who can do it for you at a reasonable fee.

You can definitely put it on a painted wall. Just ensure the colour you choose matches the colour on the wall. The choice also depends on the style of your interior décor, whether it is traditional, modern, shabby chic, Victorian or cottage style.

They say the devil is in the detail. Transform your room into a memorable space by adding a wallpaper border.