One of the ways to add style to your place is by hanging up posters in your bedroom, study room, the living room, or any other part of the house. Posters have a way of reflecting the things we are interested in, whether they are about movies or music artists or fashion icons or anything else.
Knowing how to hang up posters is an asset if you’re working in a grocery store, supermarket, hardware, and other places where you need to hang up announcements regarding your next seasonal sale or a great deal your customers can snag over the weekend or a new item you have with a limited stock offering.
The goal is, of course, to be able to hang up your posters without damaging the paint of the walls. Too often, we hang up posters on our walls thinking that they are fine just as they are, only to take them down and discover that we have smudged the paint or that the paint starts peeling off. This is something we do not want to happen, as it costs a lot more to repaint your walls than it costs to hang up your poster properly.
If you’re about to hang up posters in your bedroom, store, or wherever else, take just a moment to read these tips that will surely help you. Instead of using tools for hanging up your pictures or posters, these steps can be taken without doing any damage to your walls.
Before Hanging Your Posters
Here are some steps to take before hanging your posters up. These steps are important, in order to get your posters hanged up properly and easily.
1. Straighten Your Posters
It’s easier to hang posters up the right way if your posters are ready for hanging. Most of the time, when we get posters, they are rolled up, making it difficult to straighten them out. Unroll your posters first and give them a little time to get flat, especially if you will be hanging them without frames. Lay your poster down on a flat surface (such as the floor or a table) and put a little bit of weight on each corner (coffee books, paper weight, mugs, glasses work great for this).
2. Clean Your Hands
When handling your posters, make sure that your hands are clean (it would be good to wash your hands first!) so as to avoid smudging your poster or the wall where you will hang it. This will ensure that your posters are free of any crumbs, grease, lotion, oil, or any other residue that might come from your hands.
3. Clean the Wall
If your wall has dust or debris, there’s a chance that whatever gentle adhesive you have a hard time sticking up. Make sure your walls are clean by washing (and soaping if necessary) and cleaning the area where you will hang up your posters. This will also make it easier to take down in the long run.
If your wall is newly painted, make sure that the paint is totally dry, as adhesives, no matter how gentle, can leave marks on a fresh coat of paint.
Hanging Up Your Posters
Now that you’ve cleaned your hands, cleaned the wall where you are going to hang up your posters, and unrolled and straightened your posters, here are some ways you can hang them up without damaging your walls:
1. Mounting Tape
Mounting tape is a sure and sturdy way to hang up your poster and can also be used to mount heavier stuff. This is also known as double-sided tape with adhesives on both sides. Just make sure that you buy the ones that are good for walls, easy to remove, and are residue-free. Most kinds of mounting tapes can be said to hold up to 5 pounds and to stick strongly to surfaces such as brick, wood, metal, concrete, vinyl, marble, tiles, and plastic.
Check out the different types of mounting tape.
Pro Tip: When you need to remove a poster with mounting tape as its adhesive, slowly peel from the edges, using a string to separate the adhesive from the wall. If an adhesive is particularly stuck to the wall, you can try to remove it using a hair dryer or a heat gun. This can be used also if you happened to use the wrong kind of mounting tape.
2. Magic Tape
Magic tape is also known as invisible tape or transparent tape. The reason why it’s a good adhesive to use when you’re hanging up posters is that it’s clear, barely noticeable, and easy to remove. It’s good for finished or painted surfaces, metal, and tile. If you need to stick posters to glass, you can also use this, as the transparent tape will be barely noticeable. It doesn’t stick so much and will not leave any damage to your walls.
Check out the different kinds of transparent tape.
3. Mounting Putty or Glue Dots
This is one of the best ways to hang up a poster, especially those that are lighter. This mounting putty lets you pinch off the size you need to stick on the wall for your posters. It’s soft, moldable, and can be rolled into a ball, if you need it to be a ball you can flatten it for the four corners of your poster as you hang it up. Because of its easily malleable texture and build, you can quickly remove anything that you put on it and it isn’t that difficult to remove from the wall either. It works great on surfaces like wood, tile, linoleum, cinderblock, brick, metal, plastic, and glass.
Check out the different types of adhesive mounting putty.
4. Command Strips
Command strips are adhesives specialized for hanging posters, frames and the like. They work really well on painted walls, painted or varnished wood, painted cinder block or concrete, tile, metal, glass, laminates, and other smooth solid surfaces, such as plastics, acrylic, PVC, and the like). They’re easy to stick and remove and are a great way to hang posters without damaging the paint. They are a bit like double-sided tape, but their purpose is solely for hanging posters and pictures up.
They have made different kinds of hanging strips to hold up everything from picture frames to wall art, canvas, posters, and more, but you can get started with this.
5. Tabs & Velcro Fasteners
Another method that is quickly becoming popular is by attaching your poster through tabs or velcro fasteners. These fasteners are attached to your wall and poster through a gentle kind of removable adhesive. You can then mount it on the wall by sticking the velcro together. They hold your items firmly without damaging the wall and you don’t need to worry about leaving holes or tacks that can damage your wall. They may cost more, but they are a good investment.
There are a number of velcro fasteners that vary in shape, size, the stickiness of adhesives, and more. Make sure to find one that has a gentle adhesive so that it won’t damage the surface of your wall, such as these thin clear fasteners.
6. Some Unique Ways
Got no time for a quick run to buy adhesives? Believe it or not, some people use toothpaste as a way to stick up posters on their well. Simple, plain old toothpaste (without mixing any whiteners or anti-adhesion chemicals) can serve as a sticky material to hanging up posters. You can put some droplets on all four corners of the poster and paste it on the designated space.
The use of some kinds of shampoo is another unique way to hang up posters, nevertheless, they can only be used for lighter posters and might not be able to handle staying up very long in some humid environments.
While hanging up your posters might seem tricky and a bit complicated, it doesn’t have to be so. You just need clean hands, a clean wall, and the right kinds of materials. Pretty soon, you’ll have your bedroom all nice and decorated or your store ready for the next sale.