Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Wallpaper 101: You've been warned.

So I tackled the wallpaper in the entry way last night. I'm hoping for one of those dramatic blogger reveals so no pictures here, whomp whomp. After I posted on my Facebook page with the hashtag #donotletmefthisup, I went ahead and did just that. First piece up, got it all situated along the straight line I drew and trimmed all the edges and then I noticed it was upside down. Granted, with the pattern of the wallpaper, it probably wouldn't have been too noticeable but I noticed. And I had 33 feet to work with and I only needed about 30 of those, I could totally start over. Turns out it's not that easy. Here are a few thoughts on hanging wallpaper from yours truly :)


Do not hang your first piece upside down. Granted, this wallpaper doesn't appear to have an actual "way" that it should be hung, but it does. There are little grasshoppers that should not be hanging upside down. I dare you to find the damn grasshopper in the photo below... :)


No one would have noticed, I know. Moving on.
Measure 12 times, cut once. I think I measured once, cut 12 times on what I thought were the easiest pieces. And always have your tape measure handy. And always have a sharp utility knife.

Do not eyeball anything. When you are off the 8 foot ladder, standing in the other room (and have horrible depth perception as it is), looking through a doorway, you seriously can not just say, "Oh right below this flower is where I should cut." because as you can see, it'sallflowers. Take the time to actually figure it out and use something other than the "put one finger here, the other here, get off the ladder, lay it on the floor, where was that spot again, oh here, cut here" method. It will not work.

Maybe not start with an expensive wallpaper. I've never hung wallpaper before, only destroyed it taking it down in numerous rooms.  It probably would have been a good idea to start with the $1.00 roll I got at Habitat for Humanity Restore. Not the $160 roll from Anthropologie.

Plan. Like seriously, get your tape measure out and plan where your seams will be. I didn't do this and I should have. Why? Because I picked the worst possible wall to debut my wallpapering skills.

So pick a nice flat, blank wall to practice on first. Not a fireplace with 2 light fixtures, 1 giant mirror and 2 corners.

And in order to avoid buying an entire roll to finish the job, piece that shit together and call it a night.  I took my own advice here and did just that. I was 2 rows short. Wallpaper has this thing called a "repeat" so you don't just stop one section and continue with the next. I neglected to even think about that so I cobbled about 15 pieces together to finish. From a distance you can't tell, but if you're up there changing a light bulb or inspecting my work to be an a-hole, you'll see it.

It took me 5 hours to finish the job but I am SUPER happy with it. I love how it turned out and I'm happy to have crossed it off my to-do list! As soon as my fiance (oh yea, I got engaged) gets his lawn tools out of the way - and okay, I need to hang the light fixtures back too - I'll get some pictures and get those posted!



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