#OneRoomChallenge, Week Five: Removable Wallpaper

It's the fifth week of the One Room Challenge, and with just one more to go, I have the wallpaper (finally) up and will be working on accessories and some finishing touches in the coming week.

The wallpaper/ Cut to size and ready to hang

Applying the removable wallpaper wasn't too bad overall, the closest thing I can relate it to is working with a really, really big sticker. I started out by measuring out the surface area I wanted to cover (I decided only to do the two opposite walls to keep it from feeling too busy), and I then laid out the paper on the floor and cut it to length with a couple of inches extra to ensure full coverage. Since the roll is narrower than the wall, I had to line up the second strip and match the pattern then cut that length as well. Word to the wise, pattern matching creates a lot of short, unusable sections so take that into account anytime you're shopping for wallpaper and buy more than you think you need, like, a lot more. I believe some websites have calculators that will take this into account for you but always be sure to double check! Another thing that proved a bit tricky was working around the window. Initially, I tried to cut and apply it in one piece, but that proved challenging to line up, so I ended up working in rectangles, being careful to match all my seams before trimming off the excess. Cutting a little more than I needed proved vital once I had everything up on the wall, despite my measurements being accurate because we live in such an old building the walls are not perfectly straight and the ceiling is slightly sloped and trimming the edges in place allowed me to account for all of this. 

Taping it in place

When it came time to hang the wallpaper, I started by taping it up in place on the wall with the backing still on. Once everything was in place, I used a straight edge to trim the paper to fit, then carefully removed the backing, starting at the top and pulling it down while smoothing the paper with my other hand to ensure there were no air bubbles. Working slowly and steadily was key here. If you're a bit off on a section, don't worry, it's easy to remove and reposition, be careful not to pull on it to the point where you stretch the material. Like I mentioned earlier, once that backing is off, it's like one big sticker and gets much more unwieldy, so if you can get it up in the first shot, you will have a much easier time. 

The final results

 Overall, I'm thrilled with how it turned out. The entire process took me a couple of hours, but I had a toddler for an assistant, who insisted on manning the roll of tape so it may go even faster for you. The paper I used is the Canary Floral Print, $30 from Target's new Opalhouse line and I love the print even more in person. My kid is obsessed with the "birdies" on the walls, so I think it's safe to say that she's a fan as well. 

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The Full Series:

 Week One | Week Two | Week Three | Week Four | Week Five | Week Six

Thanks for following along, you can find last week post here, where I show you how to make a DIY faux Roman Blind. You can check out the rest of the guest participants here or the amazing featured designers here. You can also follow along on Instagram by following #oneroomchallenge for some serious eye candy.