About This Guide

de Gournay produces some of the world's most beautiful wallpapers — hand-painted chinoiserie, hand-embroidered silks, and bespoke panel commissions. They are also among the most demanding to install. This guide explains what a de Gournay installation actually involves, who's involved, and why the brand's papers are installed by specialists rather than general decorators.

Written for both clients commissioning de Gournay and interior designers specifying it.

What de Gournay Actually Is

de Gournay is a British/Chinese atelier founded in 1986, producing hand-painted wallpapers and silks in collaboration with master Chinese artists. Each commission is painted by hand, often over several weeks, to dimensions specific to your room. The catalogue runs from traditional chinoiserie (Earlham, Badminton, Long Bayan) through landscape and floral (Le Brun, Coromandel) to contemporary collaborations and bespoke work.

Papers are produced on a range of grounds: hand-painted paper, dyed silk, gilded paper, and metal leaf. Each ground has its own install considerations.

The Commission Process — What Happens Before Install

1. Design selection

Working with an interior designer or directly with de Gournay's London or New York studios, you choose a design and discuss colourway, ground type, and any bespoke adjustments. Bespoke work — your own colourway, additions, or composition changes — is welcomed and routine.

2. Room measurement

This is critical. The atelier paints panels to dimensions specific to your room. Wall heights, widths, window and door placements, the position of switches and sockets — all are recorded at this stage. Mismeasurement at commission stage costs months to correct.

3. Painting

The atelier paints. Typical lead time from commission to delivery: 12–18 weeks. Bespoke and complex commissions can run longer.

4. Wall preparation (in parallel)

Whilst the panels are being painted, the walls in your room are prepared to de Gournay's installation specification. This is non-trivial work — see the wall-prep section below.

5. Delivery

Panels arrive numbered for sequence. They must be stored flat in a controlled environment (dry, room temperature, away from direct sun) and unpacked at the install location, not in transit.

6. Install

3–5 working days for a typical dining room or principal bedroom. Larger schemes longer. We'll talk through the install process below.

Why a Specialist Installer

You wouldn't ask a general builder to lay book-matched marble. de Gournay installation is the same: it requires specific brand knowledge, environmental control, and a level of craft that general decorators don't routinely deliver. Three reasons it's a specialist job:

1. Panel sequencing

de Gournay panels are painted as a continuous design across multiple panels. Each panel has its place in the sequence and must be hung in the correct order. Hanging a panel in the wrong place — even one panel — breaks the design and is effectively unrecoverable without ordering replacement panels (months of lead time, significant cost).

2. Adhesive matched to ground

Hand-painted paper, dyed silk, and gilded paper each take different adhesives. The wrong adhesive can lift the paper, bleed through to the painted surface, or fail to bond. de Gournay supplies installation instructions per commission and these must be followed precisely.

3. Wall condition tolerance

The paper sits flat against the wall — any imperfection in the plaster telegraphs through the painted surface. Walls prepared "well enough" for standard wallpaper are not prepared well enough for de Gournay. The prep specification is correspondingly more demanding.

Wall Preparation Specification

What we typically specify for a de Gournay install:

Plaster

Sound, dry, with no cracking, blowing, or unevenness. Where plaster is in poor condition, a full or partial re-skim is required and quoted separately. Plaster must be fully cured (minimum 6 weeks if new) before lining.

Lining paper

1700-grade lining paper hung horizontally across all surfaces receiving de Gournay paper. Joints staggered. Fully dried before any decorative paper is hung — typically 48 hours in normal conditions.

Primer and sealant

Brand-approved primer (de Gournay specifies in the installation instructions). Sealed surface ready to receive the adhesive grade matched to your paper's ground.

Environmental conditions

Temperature 18–22°C, humidity 45–55% during install. The room must be heated and stable. For silk-ground installations, environmental control is critical — silk is moisture-sensitive and humidity spikes during install can mark the paper permanently.

Adjacent work complete

Coving, picture rails, dado rails, switches, sockets — all in place, decorated, and dry. Trim work after de Gournay install risks marking the paper.

The Install Itself — Day by Day

Day 1 — Final wall inspection and dry positioning

Walls inspected with the client and designer. Any concerns raised before panels are unboxed. Panels then unboxed, identified by sequence number, and dry-positioned against the wall to confirm pattern flow. Adjustments at this stage are routine and expected.

Day 2 — First panels hung

Brand-specified adhesive mixed. First panel hung — typically the central or anchor panel. Drop-matched to the next panel. Air worked out from centre to edges with a soft smoother. Pattern flow confirmed across the first match before continuing.

Day 3 — Remaining panels

Continuing across the wall(s). Inside corners and outside corners handled panel-by-panel rather than wrapped. Switches and sockets cut around carefully with templates.

Day 4 — Touch-up and sign-off

Minor pattern adjustments where needed (de Gournay supplies touch-up paint with most commissions for this purpose). Final inspection with client and designer under daylight and lamp light.

Day 5 — Reserved

Buffer for complications. Most installations don't need it but we schedule it in case.

Working with Interior Designers

Most de Gournay commissions come through interior designers and we're set up to work that way. What designer-led projects need from us:

Site walkthrough at concept stage — at no charge — to advise on what the room can take and what prep specification will be needed
Written prep specification document shared with the designer and (typically) the client's contractor or project manager
Scheduling aligned with the wider project timeline
Dust-controlled working in occupied properties
NDA-friendly conduct
Daily clean and full clean at job end
Photography (with client permission) for our portfolio and the designer's

Costs

de Gournay is commission-priced — every job is project-specific. Indicative numbers:

Hand-painted paper: £900–£2,500 per panel (a typical panel covers ~3m² wall area)
Hand-painted silk: £1,400–£3,200 per panel
Bespoke commissions: Project-priced; often higher
Typical dining room (3 walls): Paper £18,000–£45,000, install £3,500–£6,500
Typical principal bedroom (4 walls): Paper £15,000–£35,000, install £3,000–£5,500

Installation costs depend on room dimensions, wall-prep scope, panel count, ground type, and access. We provide a written fixed-price install quote following the consultation visit.

What to Ask a de Gournay Installer Before You Hire

How many de Gournay installations have you completed?
Are you on de Gournay's installer referral list?
What public liability insurance do you carry? (Should be £5m minimum.)
Will you produce a written prep specification document?
How do you handle adjacent contractor work — scheduling, dust control, coordination?
Can you show photographic examples of previous installations? (With permission of previous clients.)
What's your fixed-price scope? (Hourly or open-ended pricing is the wrong model for this work.)

Our de Gournay Installer Service

We install de Gournay across the Cheshire / South Manchester corridor — Wilmslow, Alderley Edge, Hale, Bowdon, and the surrounding catchment. Working directly with interior designers and private clients. See our de Gournay installer service or request a consultation.

de Gournay Installer Guide: What a Hand-Painted Installation Actually Involves