1. Smooth the walls down - rub them with sandpaper and ensure that any bumps and pieces of old paper are removed.

2. Work out the number of strips required, based on the width of each strip and the size of the room. Drop a plumb line - a thread or thin string with a weight attached - down the wall and draw along it with a pencil to ensure a straight, perfectly vertical line.

3. Cut the paper to the length of the wall, allowing an extra two inches at each end for trimming. Make sure that the pattern matches up, if you're using patterned paper.

4. Start a little way into the wall, leaving the corners for later (corners are very rarely square). Hang the paper from the drawn line.

5. You can paste three or four pieces of paper at once but make sure that you leave the pasted paper for five minutes or so while the paste soaks into the paper. When you are letting paper sit and pasting the next bit, fold it concertina-style (pasted side to pasted side) to allow you to rest it on a surface.

6. Once you've hung the paper along the line, smooth using the brush. Use a pencil to draw along the skirting board at the bottom, lift the paper and cut. At the ceiling, crease the paper with your scissors and cut along this crease.

7. When papering into the corner, crease with a pencil and then cut allowing a quarter of an inch or so of overlap. Use the piece that you cut from the corner piece on the other side of the corner and tuck the overlap under the piece that you've just hung. This will carry the pattern on to an acceptable degree.