Removable Wallpaper

I haven't been able to work in my craft area (aka: the garage) for the last few days so getting lots of in-the-house projects done; I've emptied closets and drawers to sort/purge/organize, lined shelves, cleaned the pantry...not being able to make fun crafts is probably a good thing for me once in a while! I ordered this removable wallpaper from Amazon - and hung it in the pantry (only on the wall that you can see from outside the pantry tho, I didn't go crazy and do the whole closet). I was worried it would be hard to hang by myself - the reviews said it's better with 2 people - but this was quite easy actually and I love, love how it turned out.

The paper is about 21 inches wide x 16 feet long, and has a repeating pattern - which means if you are going to put two pieces of paper together and you want the pattern to match, you might need to buy extra paper because chances are you'll have some waste when lining up the pattern. Usually the paper will say how many inches there are to the pattern before it repeats, in my case the paper repeated every 20 inches. I'll attempt some simple math: the wall I wanted to cover is 46" wide x 92" high. The paper is 21" x 192" - I'll need three sections of paper to go across the wall (2 pieces 21 inches wide, 1 is 4 inch piece for the remainder of the wall) that are each 92" long. The paper is 192" long so I would get 2 pieces 92" and have 8" left over for the third piece. Even without a repeating pattern I wouldn't have enough paper long enough for the third piece. So I had to buy two rolls of paper. Make sense?

Removable and repositionable wallpaper is like a giant roll of Contact paper, you can stick it down and pull it back up as many times as you want (until it get's all stretched out of shape, which eventually it will so don't pull it too hard). Starting with the top left corner of the wall, fold back a couple inches of the paper backing so the sticky part is exposed. Place it where you want in the corner of the wall and press so it stays in place. Then slowly peel off a few inches of paper at a time, smoothing the paper down with something hard and flat (credit card, etc. I used a shower squeegee and it worked perfect) to remove the bubbles. If you find it's not hanging straight or it's got bubbles, just gently pull the paper up and do it again (and again, and again) until it's right. Continue to the bottom of the wall, I left a couple inches and cut the paper from the roll - you could measure the paper out and cut it before hanging it but I was worried my measurement would be off so I just cut it after it was on the wall.

Now for the second piece you'll want to find where the repeat is to match up to the first piece you already hung, that's where the waste might come in - I could either have started the top of the second piece down a few inches from the ceiling where the pattern lined up and then piece in the top (which is what I chose to do) or find the repeat in the paper that matched the top of the first piece and cut off the paper to match it at the ceiling. I found I was wasting more paper by cutting off the amount that I would have needed to get the pattern to match at the top, by piecing it there wasn't so much waste.

In person you don't see the seam at all! 

Repeat for the third piece and you're done.

Today's happy moment ~ not being able to park in the garage, but finding a parking spot right in front of the house