Wallpaper Accent Wall

Holy hello, my little blog!  I have been neglecting you!!!  It is not that I have been sitting on my buttocks, watching Soaps all day and eating Bon Bons!   With dance competition season and baseball season (hubbie’s the coach), school auction and art project deadlines, traveling to LA, etc., our lives have been in a whirlwind!!!

However, I did have a Sunday morning to myself a few weeks ago and tried wallpapering for the first time.  Did you see my post on Instagram?  I was SOOO EXCITED to complete something and see the results so fast!  Oh. My. Gosh.  I had to share it with my friends INSTANTLY because it really was SOOO EASY!!!  And SOOO SATISFYING.  Once you are done, you not only see the difference, you can FEEL how it transforms the room.  Warning: once you do one room, you are going to want to do another, and another, and another.  (Yep.  I personally have already started researching ideas for our guest bath that is under construction at this very moment. 🙂 )

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

Did you grow up with wallpaper?  I did!  My first bedroom was green and white gingham.  Our kitchen had a vertical stripe with rows of little repeating flowers.  And our main bathroom had a big floral print my mom had nervously picked out (“Should I go for it?  Oh what the heck!”).  I knew from watching my dad install that particular bathroom, that it would be a tricky task but with patience and some time, it could be done!

I didn’t set out to wallpaper my daughter’s room.  Nope.  If I hadn’t gone into Target to get some mason jars for a flower arrangement, I would have never found this peel and stick wallpaper tubes from their new line, Opal House.  Oh the joys of the unexpected discoveries!!! 🙂

GETTING STARTED

Once I recruited my 8 year old son to help me pull the massive, solid wood, handmade bed away from the walls (made with love by my dad, Cliff Monroe), I cracked open a roll of paper and started going at it!

In researching “How To Wallpaper” on the internet, I had read that you should pencil off the width of your paper so that it stays straight as you stick it down the wall.  I did just that (24″ wide hash marks) but it wasn’t necessary.  I felt by using the left wall (and later, following the pattern on the previously stuck sheets) I didn’t need to continue that process.

To start, there is no glue! These sheets are like large stickers that peel off really easily.  I simply peeled off the top edge of the roll and got it straight along the top edge of the ceiling.  Then I merely used my left hand to gently smooth the sheet to the wall from left to right while my right hand held the sticker away from the wall.  If there was a bubble or wrinkle, I would simply pull the sticker back off and re-smooth out the paper.

There was a suggestion to use a plastic smoother from other’s that have wallpapered before.  I tried that and I felt it didn’t work quite as well in smoothing the stickered-paper to the wall.  Maybe because our walls are textured?  Not sure.  But, I had more success in just using my hand to smooth and press the paper into place.

TRICKS THAT WORK

Trimming the Baseboards

Once the full sheet was stuck to the wall, I used the plastic edge to cut into the corner where the wall meets the baseboards.  From there, I used a credit card as my straight edge and an exact-o knife together, and trimmed off the access paper.

To start the next row of paper, I had to line up the pattern to what was already on the wall.  This was probably the trickiest part.  My “waste nothing” brain had a hard time cutting off a few feet of paper just to line up the pattern. 🙂  After finishing the project, I now have quite a bit of miss-matched pieces.  I will have to find something fun to do with it all.  Maybe we can line the drawers of my daughter’s dresser?  or cover her bulletin board on the opposite wall with the scraps.  Or simply customize a few composition books.  We’ll see.

Trimming the Ceiling

To trim the ceiling, I used the same technique I used for trimming the baseboards.  I simply lined up the credit card against the ceiling and ran an exact-o knife parallel to the card and made a cut along the entire edge of the paper.  Pull the strip off and you are done! (well…with that section 🙂 )

FINISHING

My daughter and I have been designing this room together and I can’t tell you how excited I felt once this wall went up!  It fulfilled both of our needs and vision for the space.  She has been gravitating toward graphic prints with animals where as I was trying to get a more softer, feminine balance to the ‘tween’ room.  Before the wallpaper went up, these plain, robin’s egg blue walls made the room feel too cool and not like a warm blanket hugging you when you walked in the door.  Now, with this whimsical, soft, light accent wall, the room now has a fun and airy feminine vibe that both Jillian and I are digging.  I am so pleased.

One more detail down! Now, on to more details such as bed-skirt, curtains, wall-hangings, keeping it CLEAN :), etc.

But truly!  If you have a powder room, or a wall in your house that needs a little umph!, try a removable wallpaper.  It’s so easy, and low-commitment.  Heck, if you don’t like it next month, you can just peel it right off!!!

Happy wallpaper hanging!

xo,

Melis