4 ms·

> Wallpaper had a construction purpose one upon a time. Now it is purely decoration. When was wallpaper ever anything other than purely decorative?

• sandworm101 8y ago
  Houses move. Wood expands and contracts with the seasons. Or foundations move slightly. Plaster or other rigid coverings on walls then cracks. Wallpaper is a cheap and easy way to add a somewhat more flexible layer that doesn't show cracks so easily. And you can always put up new paper over the old. Lots of stuff, ie crown molding and baseboards, appears as tools to hide the inevitable cracks in walls. Modern houses are much more ridged, mostly because they are more watertight. Our wall finishes, paints overtop of plasterboard/drywall, are also more flexible. The 'wallpaper' layer is now part of the plasterboard.
  • SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    > you can always put up new paper over the old shudders Buy / borrow / rent a steamer!
    • namibj 8y ago
      Why? It's more expensive to do that. And there are many cases where that was not done.
  • dpark 8y ago
    I would not consider that a construction purpose. That’s purely aesthetic. Decent plaster will far outlast wallpaper anyway. The paper in modern gypsum board is not there to prevent “cracks”, either. Without the paper, gypsum board has essentially no strength and couldn’t even be hung. The paper replaces the “brown coat” of traditional plaster by adding fiber for strength.
• toomanybeersies 8y ago
  If you have an old plasterboard (or old school fibrous plaster) house that has painted walls instead of wallpaper, you will notice that there are cracks all over the walls. The house I'm renting is one such house, and I've had the same situation in other houses. It was built in the 40's or 50's and over the past half-century, the house has sagged and stretched. Because of this, there are long cracks running across several walls. If there was wallpaper on the walls, it would move with the house to an extent, and the cracks in the plaster behind it wouldn't be visible.
  • dpark 8y ago
    That’s purely aesthetics unless it’s providing structural integrity to the plaster, which I’m pretty sure it’s not. Plaster generally fails because the keys break off, not because of visible cracks (though these may indicate places where keys have been broken off).
    • sandworm101 8y ago
      Only today. In the 19th century, with the development of germ theory, people became obsessed with cleaning. Cracks were seens as dirty because they could not be cleaned. Even today, health codes for many businesses have rules against cracked tiles/walls.