Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Wallpaper From Hell


Or at least that's what The Husband was calling it.

We have this little tucked away corner in our Master Bedroom that has become my reading corner. I wanted to doing something a bit different in that space. Our Master is on the larger size and it needed something besides just the main wall color. I thought the reading corner would be a good place to mix things up in. You get a bit of pop without it being in your face all. the. time. At first I wanted to paint bold grey and white horizontal stripes but The Husband suggested wallpaper instead. I just want to clarify, it was HIS idea to do wallpaper. His. Not mine. His. Got it?

So off I went to find some wallpaper. First, I checked our local paint store and found a lot of samples that I am sure my Grandma would love. I then turned to the internet. I love the internet. I have been able to add so many little touches to our house with things I have found online that I wouldn't be able to find locally. Oh, the joys of living in a small town. Anyways, back to my wallpaper search. I wanted something modern but not to graphic or crazy. I managed to stumble across Darcy by Graham and Brown. It was perfect. It's modern and geometric and it adds a pop but it's still neutral. What more could a girl ask for?

Our finishers are starting right away (eek!) and we wanted to get the wallpaper hung before they started so that the baseboard would help keep the bottom of the paper from curling up. So it was time to hang the wallpaper.

This was a fun experience. NOT. Not at all.

First we dry cut all the paper so that it would be long enough for the wall but that the pattern would still line up. This step was good, pretty straight forward. Then we had to apply the wallpaper paste, again, pretty straightforward. We then hung the first strip, this went okay too. Then we went to hang the second strip. This is when everything went downhill. The pattern from the first sheet we hung didn't line up with the pattern of any of the other sheets we had pre-cut. Turns out we had hung the first sheet of paper upside down. We had to peel it all off and re-paste and start again. Then when we actually got to the second piece The Husband was a bit over zealous with his paper smoother and ripped a chunk of the paper. Thankfully it was close to the edge so we could just lap the next sheet over the tear. Then we get to the last sheet which had been set aside for safekeeping. Somehow beyond any logical explanation the sheet stuck to itself (it was loosely folded in half). Both The Husband and I don't recall it getting wet or being even remotely close to the glue but yet it stuck to itself. So we had to very slowly and very carefully pull it apart. Of course the paper got wrinkled and damaged in this process. It ended up working out that that piece needed to be cut just on the other side of the damaged section. Thank goodness because we didn't have enough extra to cut a new piece.

In the end it all worked out and the finished result is awesome. It just wasn't fun getting there.


Straight on view





















See how it's tucked away from the bedroom?





















2 comments:

  1. Oh wow I love it!! I hope I have a cute little nook that I can use for a fun wallpaper (I love the paintable ones!) or a stencil!

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  2. Very cool! I know a lot of times the process suuuucks... but man, so worth it!

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