5 Easy DIY Wins (The Tradies Don't Want You To Know About)

Professional renovators and past The Block NZ winners Alice and Caleb Pearson share their five favourite DIY jobs for adding value and transforming spaces

- Alice and Caleb Pearson.

1 Do your own wallpapering

For a while wallpapering seemed almost a lost art. But with advances in digital printing making any design possible, modern wallpapers now come in an almost infinite range of styles and can make a massive impact in your space. We have become big wallpaper fans and regularly use it in our renovations as it adds warmth, pattern and texture – something paint can’t do.

‘Paste the wall’ wallpaper makes applying and removing wallpaper a far simpler process than it used to be. You don’t need a professional to install wallpaper and you only need a handful of simple tools such as a smoother and a plumb line. This DIY task takes time, patience and planning – if you have those, you can wallpaper. You don’t need a flawless surface as you do with paint, which saves the cost of skim coating.

Use a pigmented sealer before you apply wallpaper, to keep any stains or colours from bleeding/showing through. Next, apply size (a wallpaper primer) to the wall and leave for 24 hours to fully cure. When you’re ready to hang, start with a plumb line to make sure the wallpaper will be straight. Apply one drop of wallpaper at a time, abutting the first one to the plumb line; if there is a pattern, take your time to make sure it lines up from one drop to the next. At the end, use a metal ruler and a sharp knife to trim the edges.

2 Tile your own splashbacks