Published: February 17, 2010, By Abbe Fenimore

What I did last night

It’s not as exciting as it sounds! Last night I finally did away with the creepy red wall in our dining room.  I’m talking murder movie, make you angry red and it had finally pushed me to the edge.  Here is the  BEFORE picture!

My husband is extremely thoughtful and makes tons of efforts to surprise me! I love him for that and his “biggest” surprise to me was a few months into the remodel of our 1950’s ranch. I was out of town for work one week and left my pile of potential paint chips sitting out. Now, to his credit I did have a red paint chip in them mix but not as an accent wall option. That red paint chip was a potential accent color that was NOT on the top of the color scheme list.

So, last night I decided that hanging wall paper was no big deal and I was going to give it a shot! I have had my eye on Cole & Son’s  “Woods” paper for a while now. As soon as I heard the rumble of the UPS truck on our street I knew exactly what he was going to bring to the door. As soon as my hubby was out the door for his weekend hunting trip, I got to work.

Here are a few pics of the installation. It was quite easy actually!  I did do a bit of research on wall paper hanging and although I didn’t do the most professional job, it looks great!  Take a look, I would love to hear what you think!

Step One: Well I skipped the real first step where you float the wall to reduce the wall texture and went straight for the adhesive! I also left the red wall. I did a test area first and the red did not show through so no need to prime…plus I was getting anxious and ready to start.  That was great news! More great news, the light bumpy texture on our walls did not show through the wall paper either. The paper is super thick and that was my saving grace here!

So, I created my own step one.  I applied the wallpaper adhesive (the strippable kind) from top to bottom and only went about 8″ wider than the strip of wallpaper.  The salesman at my local Benjamin Moore told me to take it one strip at a time and to make sure I put plenty of adhesive on the wall…but not so much that it would ooze out of the seams.

Step Two: Get with it and start hanging this fabulous pattern. Lining up the seams was super easy and matching the pattern was not too hard. It is however amazing how much waste is left at the end of each role due to the pattern repeat.  A super sharp exact-o knife is key to trimming the paper along the crown and base moldings.

Step Three:  Make sure you have a good rubber squegie, use it to smooth out the paper as you hang it and to work the seams together well. Now all I had to do was cut around the three outlets on the wall.

Almost done!!!! I was really excited and very proud of myself at this point.

With the furniture back in place, the room looks so much brighter and once everything else is in place this dining room will be swanky!

When my hubby came home I was shocked that it was the first thing he noticed. He loved it and told me it was the first thing in our house that felt like him. Yay!!  Here are a few pictures of the finished room!

See this and MORE DIY tutorial at The Lettered Cottage!