The Reveal You’ve All Been Waiting For!

Very special has just arrived. Sent special delivery all the way from England, where it was made. Now, this was only printed in Spanish. Fresh off the press. Oh, it's really nice. It's really nice. So, let's have a look. We're opening the first roll of wallpaper ever from Wallpaper. Oh, it's fabulous. Now, I'm really... Ah, yes. The very, very... Can we say the very first effort that we signed on the wallpaper? I mean, this is made with recycled paper. So, I mean, this has never happened before. Every single wallpaper now has been created from brand new paper, which is really not sustainable. So, they have developed the most beautiful paper, which is all recycled, so it's great for the environment. And actually, it has the most fantastic antique feel. I mean, it feels like an old wallpaper. Well, it is old. It's been around before, hasn't it? It's been remade into new paper, which is kind of what they used to do in the old days. You know, they'd use old fibres, like cotton and linen and stuff, to make the non-woven papers. But this is the first paper that's recycled. So, it's amazing. And it's actually a paste, which I prefer. It's the best way to do it, actually. It's a paste of the paper, not paste of the wall. I'm really pleased with it, actually. It's beautiful. So, this is the one that I'm really excited about, because we weren't really aware of this colour, until maybe two days ago when I saw this new version. So, this is the blue version. Look at that. Isn't that magnificent? So, all the colours have been changed. So, the leaves have got a different colour to the yellow version. The flowers are slightly different. There's more of the yellow bits in it. So, it's completely completely changed. It's not just the background. It's been changed. It's been tweaked to make it fit perfectly. It's beautiful. It's a lot of paper, isn't it? Well, it's fantastic. It feels good. It feels like the old paper that you've got from all the samples. It feels like all the old papers we've got in our archives. Come on then, Michael. I don't believe it. What do I get? Nothing. Well, hello everyone, and welcome to a very exciting section of the video. We're going to be doing a wallpaper masterclass of how to hang this beautiful recycled paper. So, the first thing you need to do is make sure your walls are completely clean, free of dust and primed. So, you can buy special wallpaper primers. We've just put a normal coat of paint on this so that when you put the wallpaper paste with the paper on it, the paste isn't going to get sucked into the plaster and then the wallpaper will fall off. So, that won't happen because we've prepared the walls. So, all wallpapers have a vertical repeat. And that means this wallpaper, well, this wallpaper specifically has something called a half-drop repeat. So, if, say, from this bird to this bird is your repeat, the next wallpaper pattern repeat will start halfway between those two points. So, if you were to just work from one roll, every time you have to cut a new piece, you might have that much waste. So, the best way is to actually use two rolls at the same time. So, if you look here, well, actually, which is really convenient, this second roll starts exactly where it finishes. So, this is amazing because I've never seen this before in a wallpaper, is that you don't actually have to cut off this part and then line it up. So, maybe if you open a few rolls, obviously you're not going to buy just one, if you open a few rolls and check them, find one that lines up with the least wastage, there you go, look. It's amazing, but obviously if your wallpapers have to start exactly at the same place every roll, then you're better to start with one roll and then for the next drop you go to the second roll and then you work back and forth and that way you have very little wastage. So, obviously you've got your wallpaper, you've got your walls ready, what do you need next? Well, you're going to need some wallpaper paste. So, I'm just using a pretty standard wallpaper paste, nothing special, wallpaper paste is pretty much the same thing. You can get special ones for vinyl and things like that, but because this is just a normal paper, we're using bog standard wallpaper paste. You need a bucket, some water and you'll need, because this is a paste the paper wallpaper, which I prefer because what happens is, if you, you know, paste the wallpapers are great. If you've got a brand new modern house, all the walls are perfectly level and every corner is perfectly plumb and at a right angle. But, this is an old building, so what I like to do is, whilst you're in the office, you leave the doors to go around and things like that, I like to paste the paper, because once the paste is on the back of the paper, it becomes flexible. It almost becomes like fabric and until it dries, it's really flexible. So, you can bend it around corners and things like that and over uneven walls. I prefer it, this paper is paste the paper only, which is great because it's the traditional way. So, you need a brush to put it on with. So, I'm going to use a brush pretty much like this. You can get this on Amazon or anywhere online. This is just a wallpapering brush. You're going to need scissors. We have a really special pair of scissors here. These are handmade in Sheffield in England and they are called paper hand scissors and they're designed to cut really straight lines. So, you're going to need that. You'll need a tape measure. You will need some pencils. I've got some pencils in here. Now, a lot of people nowadays, they use like plastic blades. You know, obviously, when you scrape over the paper to make sure it's flat and pressed against the wall. So, that can damage paper. And what people used to use years ago were these beautiful paper hanger brushes. Now, originally, they were made of like horsehair and boar bristle. Nowadays, you can get these synthetic ones. These are by Hamilton in England. But I do have some vintage ones that I actually bought on eBay. So, we're going to use both. We've got ones made of horsehair and boar bristle. We've also got the modern version, which is made of synthetic fiber. So, we're going to test the two, actually. We're going to find out whether the new synthetic bristles are better than the old natural bristles or vice versa. So, we'll find out later. So, we've got loads of those. We've got a slightly smaller one, which has got shorter hairs. It's a much denser brush. And these brushes are exactly the same ones that our grandfather, Daniel Thomas Pethrick, he was one of the best wallpapers in the whole of the UK. He had his own company, Thorley & Pethrick, with his business partner. And he used to win awards for getting his wallpaper up. He had some amazing contracts in London in special buildings, the NY5 building. And I think they had a staff of over 100 decorators working for him monthly. We never met him, but we're going to follow in his footsteps and do things the traditional way. So, they are exactly what he used, along with these businesses. So, here we go. For thick papers or thin papers. Thick or thin paper? 7.5 or 5. So, we'll do between. So, 6 litres of water. Let's get 6 litres of water and mix up this. Right. So, let's think about this now, shall we? Look at this pattern here. Right. If I was to put this at the top of the room, just straight off of the wall there, this little bird's head would be cut off. And it would actually do exactly the same thing the whole way around the room. Every other drop of this bird's head would be cut off. So, what I might do is actually just trim it. Just there. Beautiful scissors. Right, it's time to paste the paper. So, I've turned it over. This is the end. I know this is the top part. And let's paste it. We'll see how it goes. A bit of liquid and a little water. Paste is on. What we now do is, from the bottom of the paper, and then we fold it up in itself. Beautifully. So, we're going to fold it in like that. And then when I lift it up, I'll peel that bit back. I finished the corner. It was very difficult, actually, because there's a lot of cuts around the door. The wall in the corner actually goes like that. So, it was really difficult. I had to actually cut out this little pattern from another piece of paper and overlap them, almost like a collage, to rebuild the pattern, because the wall was sloped. You didn't need it. But, you know, it's perfect. If you look here, you would never be able to tell, unless you got up on a ladder and looked really closely. But this corner here, that's where I did the sort of collage and rebuilt the pattern. And it looks great. So, now we're on the home stretch, because here, there's no fireplace. There's no things to cut around. I can just go straight across one piece to the next piece to the next piece. So, I'm going to do that now. Okay, so, you should basically get the left side of your paper. Don't let it all stick at the same time. Line it up. You need to spot the joints up against each other. Never overlap. Get it as close as you can, and then brush from that to the right, making sure it's completely flat. Using your brush, brush left, brush right. Brush up and down, make sure there's no bubbles. And then, you see this is folded behind. We're going to pull it down a little bit more, but not all the way. Make sure those joints are butted up against each other perfectly. That will make sure it's flat on the other side. So, it really is a straight line. We're doing our best. We're doing the best we can. For the joints, once you've got everything lined up and you've got all the paper flat on the wall, you need a roller. So, normally they're made of wood or plastic. I like these metal ones. I think they're actually for leather work. They're really heavy. And what you do is, obviously, there's glue under the wallpaper. So that you've got enough glue and it's stuck really well where the joint is, you need to use the roller. You need to brush back and forth. That's going to push some of that glue into that joint from that way, and then some of the glue from this side back that way. And you will actually get some of the glue. Maybe it will seep out through the crack. And also, what that does is, it actually pushes the two bits of paper. So, if one's overlapped that way, the roller will push it down. And if one's overlapped that way, the roller will push it back down that way. And then that way, you get a perfect joint like that, with enough glue and no overlaps. And it's perfect. Just like that. For cutting and trimming the edges, what I would do is, you get one of these plastic blades. You can get them anywhere. And just very gently push into the corner. So, it's actually right in there. And then you also want to… This will kind of score the paper a little bit, make it easy to cut. Very, very sharp blade. Don't use an old one. These ones, you can snap the end off. Kind of rock it a little bit, almost like as if you're cutting with a knife. And then just follow the corner that you scored, nice and neatly, all the way along. And you have to be really careful, because if you see the paper starting to tear, that means it's probably too wet. And it's probably best to just wait a little bit until it's dry, maybe another 10 minutes, or something like that, and then go back and do it. This has dried out a little bit, so it's much easier to cut. But yeah, if it's tearing, it's pulling the paper and tearing it, it's too wet. So, the last thing, you need a damp microfiber cloth. And just very gently, wipe over that joint, in case you've got any excess glue. If it's a seat towel, or any little bits, you know, where you've got a bit of dirt on your hand, or you touch the paper with a dirty hand, or something like that, just make sure. And that will also kind of smooth it out, add a little bit of moisture back to the paper. And there you go, and that's the end of this Masterclass for today. Obviously, we're going to go into a bit more detail in the future with some other videos, but for now, thanks for watching, and I'll see you next week. So, Billy has done something really amazing. He's driven all the way to England to pick up something really special for the launch of our wallpaper. Now, this is our grandfather, Daniel Pethrick, also known as Mick, and he was one of the best decorators in the country when he was alive. We never met him, he died in 1980, but he was one of the best wallpapers in the whole of the country. And these are his wallpapering tools. Now, my auntie had them in her shed. These are his scissors. These are wallpapering brushes. Now, they're almost identical to the ones I used to put this wallpaper up, but I use new ones because these are a bit fragile. And, yeah, so the Pethrick lineage of wallpapering goes way back, way back, a long, long time. So, originally, the Pethricks were installing wallpapers, and now we're making them. So I think he'd be really proud of what we're doing, and I think he'd approve of the quality as well because this is a proper old-fashioned-style wallpaper built to last. Well, look at this, everyone. The first wallpaper from Pethrick & Co. is finally on the walls in the chateau, and it has taken us probably about a year of planning to get to this point. And Billy has been instrumental in pushing me to do this by getting the room ready, by getting everything I needed to create the design, and it's all led to this point. So we are officially launching the first three wallpapers by Pethrick & Co. So you've got this one in the yellow, the beautiful yellow, like in the chinoiserie pattern. We call it the Emperor's Pezza because it's imperial Chinese yellow inspired by the 18th century. We also have a beautiful blue colorway, and we also have a neutral colorway, which is like a beautiful, soft, mushroom-beige color, which will go beautifully in any room. So these three wallpapers, along with the beautiful silk wallpapers, are available now on the website pethrickandco.com. Now, for the first week, for all of our viewers, we're offering a 10% discount on all the wallpapers with the code KRAKON, so we'll put that on the screen now, the code whispered in. They are available. Every single roll will be made to order, so there'll be a little bit of a wait, so they'll be available in January for shipping if you order them now, and they are absolutely beautiful. I'm so impressed with this wallpaper. I never dreamed that it could be this good, and there's loads more designs coming in the future, and this is just the first for us. So I want to officially announce that it's available now on the website. It's pethrickandco.com. Now, we'll put a link to that in the description, also on the screen here, and I just want to thank all the viewers because it's down to you that we were able to do this, for buying prints, for watching the videos, for all of your amazing support with the comments, the positive comments you've given us, and it's taken, yeah, it's taken at least a year of planning to get to this point, but for me, it's taken probably six years from when I first did a wallpaper years ago up until this point. So I want to thank all the viewers. Go and have a look on the website. It's available now, and we'll see you for another video really soon. Thank you so much, everyone.