Tracey Paul from Provincial Wallcoverings Ltd. in Toronto dropped into the studio to give both me and you some tips on getting wallpaper on the wall looking good and staying put.
Most important according to Tracey is to have the wall smooth with no bumps or holes before you start.
Read the instructions that come with the wallpaper, especially to find out the recommended temperature of the water for your wallpaper.
Always use sizing on the wall first. Sizing both helps the wallpaper to stick better, and helps it come off easier when it is time to remove it.
Re-roll the paper with the glue side out before putting it into the water bin. That will assure better wetting.
Always "book" the wallpaper. Tracey finally explained to me why this is important, something that I never knew. Not only does the glue soak through and through, but the paper initially swells and then shrinks, before it even gets on the wall. If you go directly from the bin to the wall, the shrinkage will happen on the wall -- and that really messes up the pattern.
Start in the least noticed corner of the room. Why? Because in each corner you can fold around the corner and match the paper on the following wall, until you reach the final corner. Then it never matches, so you want this corner to be the least obvious. Of course you could paint one or more walls and then the paper wouldn't ever get back to the starting corner.
If you have a large pattern, buy extra wallpaper because you will have more scrap moving the pattern around to match.