Zoey’s Wallpaper Project

I cannot believe that I am even mentioning wallpaper to you all! I remember the days as a child, stripping wallpaper off my childhood home’s walls and my mom bringing the books of wallpaper samples home. In fact, I still remember the ballerina bear wallpaper border that accented my room. Anyone else have a similar childhood? 

With all this said… I am LOVING all the latest wallpaper these days. Wallpaper is definitely the hero of the room and it adds so much character and warmth. 

Zoey, my 8-year-old, asked for a room makeover for her birthday. (This was back in November and I am just getting to it!) Part of this makeover was her desire for wallpaper. I was slightly frightened as my childhood memories started to creep back in. I did some hunting and I decided on two patterns that I let her choose from (I could not give up complete control). 

-> Here is the wallpaper she chose! 

So as always…my expectations of what wallpapering would look like and what the actual process ended up being was greatly skewed. 

The process

The walls in our house are lightly textured with an orange peel. As I quickly learned, wallpaper and textured walls do not mix. 

We had to use joint compound to smooth the walls out and then provide a light sanding and finish by priming them.

Here is what it looked like after joint compound and sanding:

This whole thing was a process in itself that I wasn’t expecting but I also didn’t want to take a chance for the wallpaper not to stick or have lumps and bumps. 

Next up…finally applying the wallpaper! YAY!

Thank goodness for Kyle, because it really took some thought to line up all the repeating patterns and not waste a ton of wallpaper. 

We matched up and cut two pieces at a time. The pattern became very familiar and we started talking in terms of  “you know the big birds, blue flowers, or little birds” 🙂 . 

Honestly, the easiest part was the actual application of the wallpaper. I imagined it being tricky to work all the air bubbles out of the paper, but it was not bad at all. 

Me in my snazzy working attire… yay for a good pair of slippers you can find here! 

We rocked and rolled…half a day to complete one wall…you bet! 

Look at Kyle down there working his little heart out.

We continued the process matching up patterns, cutting, cussing…

With the pattern matching, you do waste a fair amount of paper, which is a bit of a drag but definitely worth it.

We made our final reveal to Zoey…she loved it! 

It was so beautiful and definitely worth it! 

Before and After…

Before

After

Now…to find a cute matching rug and window treatments! Stay tuned for the rest of Zoey’s room remodel. 

Love you guys!

Taryn