A designer's wallcovering specification checklist

What should a wallcovering specification contain? Enough for the installer to set out the room without a phone call: the exact product, the elevations with the focal points marked, the repeat and match, what has been sampled, who supplies the material and who signs off the wall. The sample is often approved long before anyone decides where the first seam will fall. The checklist below brings that decision forward, so the design survives contact with the site. It is also available as a blank specification schedule to fill in per room.

Product identity

• Maker, collection, product code and colourway, with the current hanging instruction attached and its date or revision noted, so everyone works from the same sheet. For Phillip Jeffries that is their hanging instructions page; every maker has an equivalent.
• Usable width, trimmed or untrimmed edges, roll or panel length, sale unit and minimum order.
• Repeat, match type (free, straight, half-drop, panel sequence) and hanging direction, including whether alternate drops are reversed. Reversing is a direction, not a match: a half-drop hung with reversed drops is two separate instructions, and both belong on the schedule.
• Backing, and the adhesive and primer the maker specifies for it.
• Whether the item is confirmed or provisional, so a provisional reference is never mistaken for an order.

Elevations and design intent

• A drawn elevation for every wall that carries a scenic, a pronounced pattern, a natural weave or a textile, showing doors, windows, joinery, cornice, dado and services.
• The focal point and the intended centreline: chimney breast, bed wall or window, so the set-out starts from the right place. Our guide to hand-painted papers and murals shows why this has to precede production.
• Where seams may fall and where they must not, including internal and external corners and returns.
• Whether visible natural panels are expected or a uniform finish is wanted; see grasscloth seams and variation.
• How the covering meets joinery, and whether it continues onto it; our joinery and panels page describes that detail.

Conditions

• Room use, expected cleaning regime and the light: a textile wall lit from the side needs a truer substrate than one lit from the front. See wall preparation.
• Lining: specified, not specified, or to the maker’s instruction.
• Any fire, acoustic or wet-area requirement, with the document for the exact product rather than the collection. An acoustic system is only acoustic as installed to its own detail.
• Whether a sample area, strike-off or mock-up is required, its purpose and who accepts it.

Responsibilities

• Who confirms the purchase quantity, and on what measurement basis. Our quantities page explains drops, repeat and batch.
• Who orders, who receives and checks the delivery, and who approves the batch. On many hotel and flagship jobs the material is free-issue from the designer, the brand or the client; we manage delivery and check it against the measure.
• Who signs off wall readiness and the set-out before cutting starts.
• Who decides whether a substitution is acceptable, and what evidence it needs.

Change control

• A dated revision on the schedule and the affected elevation whenever a colourway, dimension or wall position changes.
• A rule that an approved sample is not enough if the final order carries a different reference.
• A record of what remains unresolved, marked clearly, so the first site conversation can go straight to the decisions still needed.

When does this checklist stop being enough?

It covers what an installer needs. It does not establish a product’s fire or acoustic performance, does not replace the maker’s own specification sheet, and does not turn a family description into a product approval. For a first review, send the specification, the elevations, the project location, the programme and the procurement responsibilities to the designers and architects page. Where a main contractor is procuring the package, the developer package guide sets out the tender side.