Last month I showed you the before and after of my office/craft room makeover. Far and away the #1 comment I got was how much everyone loved the new faux brick walls! Today I’m going to show you how to apply removable wallpaper so you can achieve this look too!
And I’m with you. I’m totally with you guys, because in person, they look even more amazing!
I knew I wanted to do something fun and unique with these 2 end walls in my office. It’s the room over our garage, and I love how quirky it already is with the sloped ceilings and bright blue wood paneled walls. I wanted it to be a colorful, creative space for me to work in.
I seem to lean towards decorating with bold, bright colors and then adding some warmth in. That warmth might come from the console table I built, the barn door we added in the kitchen or in this case, a faux brick wall!
I partnered with RoomMates Decor for this part of the makeover, because not only did I fall in love with this faux brick wallpaper, but the reviews were the best I found too. Trust me, I’m a planner and I looked at A LOT of sites! I read about all kinds of issues like the wallpaper curling a short time, the stickiness being too weak or in some cases too strong and damaging walls, the design looking too fake once it was up. I read about it all and almost scrapped the idea of vinyl wallpaper completely because I was feeling discouraged.
Then I stumbled on the RoomMates Decor site and the reviews were glowing, and I was back in business! I seriously didn’t look at one more site this one, and even now, after it’s been hanging for about 3 weeks, I’m thrilled with my choice!
Here’s a simple guide for how you can hang it in your house to make a huge impact in less than a day!
How to Apply Removable Wallpaper:
Peel & Stick wallpaper from RoomMates Decor
Directions:
Measure your space to determine how many rolls you need to order. Each pattern will be different because they have a different drop match for when the pattern repeats itself, so be sure to take that into account. The descriptions on the site will give you the specific drop match for the pattern repeat.
Once you are ready to get started, remove all outlet and vent covers, and make sure your walls are clean of dust and other debris.
Watch the video on the RoomMates Decor website. I won’t go into too many specifics because the video does a fantastic job of covering pretty much everything you need to know!
I will say that you need to listen when they tell you to pre-cut your pieces! I’m not always the biggest fan of extra steps and prep work, so I tried to do the first panel without pre-cutting it and it was SO much harder! As soon as you find your rhythm with matching up your patterns, pre-cutting that piece and then applying it… it goes so much faster!
We also pre-cut for our angled ceilings and around the window frames. By pre-cutting, it led to less bubbles that you had to work out with your plastic smoother and everything just laid much better.
With the faux brick wallpaper, we were working in sheets that started at the ceiling and worked their way down to the baseboards.
Use the plastic smoother to smooth out any air bubbles as you work your way down. The vinyl is able to be repositioned, so if you find you’re crooked, just peel it back, straighten it out and start over. We had to do this numerous times and you still got a solid, firm adhesion once you smooth it down for the final time.
When you get to the bottom, use the plastic smoother to make sure it’s nice and tight around the baseboards or door trim and then just trim it off with your razor knife.
There were some spots where our pattern was off by just a row or two. Rather than having to drop 20.5″ to find the next repeat of that pattern, we just started that strip a little lower and then filled it back in later with the matching piece. You can’t even tell that’s pieced together, I promise you!
We kept lots of scraps that we had to trim out (for windows, doors, the cabinet, etc.) and saved them just for spots like this that needed filled in. We were able to find nearly all of the pattern matches doing it this way rather than having to cut random pieces out of the roll itself.
If you’re covering entire walls (versus just the back of a bookshelf or smaller surface), and you’re brand new to applying vinyl wallpaper, I would advise to go with a pattern that is forgiving. While it is easy to apply, and I promise that you will find your groove, you will probably still have some wrinkles or air bubbles. It’s just hard to get around some of those detailed window trims or light switches and have it lay completely flat.
But if your pattern is forgiving, you won’t even be able to tell! We only had maybe 2-3 wrinkles between the 2 walls we did, and this was our first time ever applying vinyl wallpaper. This picture contains our largest wrinkle and it’s probably about 4″ long, but I bet you can’t even find it! I know it’s there and I still have to run my hand over it to find it!
It cleans up easily with just a quick brush with a damp rag. And if you ever decide to change it, it peels off even easier than it went on with no damage to your walls! Perfect for rental situations! My daughter may or may not already perusing the website for ideas for her college dorm room. She’s only 13!
My favorite part, though, is how much depth and warmth it brings to the room! So much more personality than just a solid color, painted wall!
Be sure to pin this post so you have it available once your peel & stick wallpaper arrives!