It’s now week 2 of the One Room Challenge and I’ve already hit a roadblock. Being a novice when it comes to wallpaper, I made a mistake and did not order enough wallpaper and I have run out with just two small areas to go. I ordered enough for the square footage, but not enough to account for the need to match patterns and the extra amount of paper that needs. The wallpaper I’m using is beautiful (in my opinion) but when I went to reorder, it was backordered until late November, meaning I wouldn’t be able to complete the project until early December. Obviously not ideal regardless of the 8 week One Room Challenge or not. So I managed to find some on eBay and hopefully it’s the real deal and I can finish the wallpaper early next week.
I found this article to be very helpful, but honestly just starting and getting the hang of it worked best for me.
As you can see from the picture above, I also previously installed a wallpaper liner, and then applied primed over that, in preparation for the wallpaper since our drywall is textured. I am not sure how much it helped, and to be honest I found the liner and the glue that I used much more difficult to work with than the wallpaper. I used a brush and this glue with the liner, but wasn’t happy with the application process so changed it for the wallpaper application. For the wallpaper, I used a roller and this glue, and found the application so much easier.
The other tools I found essential were this smoother/spreader, this seam glue, this seam roller, and this knife. After reading a few articles about installing wallpaper that mentioned using a snap off blade knife I thought it was unnecessary, but after experiencing trying to cut off excess wallpaper with a dulling blade I realized why it was essential. Oh and make sure to keep a sponge handy to wipe away excess glue!
And if you’re doing any sort of home renovations projects, you may want look into getting this light. It seems superfluous, and when I saw James snagging it at Lowes I though he was being well, James, but we have both used it constantly. We both have used it painting to make sure we’re not missing any spots, and since I had to remove the sconces in here to install the wallpaper (and there’s no overhead lighting in the powder room) it was crucial to this project. It runs off the batteries our other power tools use making it very convenient.
Make sure to head to the One Room Challenge blog to read more about the Challenge and see what some of the other participants are doing! You can also refer back to my Week 1 post to see my design plan and learn more.
