From the very beginning I knew I wanted grasscloth wallpaper in the hubs office. When I say “from the beginning” I mean from the day we moved in to this house (like almost 3 years ago). However, being that I had never wallpapered before, I didn’t want to dive in to this project without doing some research first. Right away I decided that working with a pre-pasted wallpaper (one that doesn’t require applying wallpaper paste) sounded like something I might actually be able to do. This is one of the main reasons why I chose to use this grasscloth-like wallpaper by Allen + Roth that is sold at Lowe’s.
It’s not actually grasscloth – it’s vinyl! Let’s keep it a secret – mmmkay? 😉 Seriously, it looks just like the real thing. Apart from the fact that is was super easy to put up all by myself, it’s a lot less expensive at about $20/ roll in comparison to the real unpasted thing.
So here’s how I did it. In typical Carmel style I didn’t follow the directions which called for submerging in water to activate the pre-pasted glue. That just sounded like a crazy hot mess to me, so I opted to use a spray bottle of water.
I measured, then cut, then moved the cut piece over to the drop cloth and sprayed it very liberally with water. I waited about 5 minutes to let the water activate the glue and then I attached the piece to the wall.
I started in the least conspicuous corner of the room and worked my way around from there. Once the wallpaper was on the wall I lightly sprayed it again and used a wallpaper smoothing tool to work out any bubbles.
I used that big blue sponge you can see on the floor 2 photos up to wipe away any excess water. The great thing about wallpaper is that while it’s wet you have time to wiggle it into place, so if you don’t get it to lay right the first time you can adjust it accordingly. I never used a level I just eyeballed it and it turned out just fine. There were a few sheets that didn’t meet flush up against the crown moulding, so I went back and filled in those places with a little trim paint.
The main thing I messed up on a few times was measuring (story of my life).
No worries though as those pieces were then taken down and used around the window and over the doorway. Because of these silly mistakes I ended up using 3 1/2 rolls rather than just 3 which is again no big deal considering how inexpensive this paper was.
One thing I want to point out about grasscloth in general is that you will have seams, There’s no way around that. It’s not like a typical wallpaper with a repeating pattern that you can match up. I think that is part of its character.
I actually grew up with grasscloth. Yes, my mom and dad had grasscloth in our family room when I was a kid (they also had the coolest velour chevron sofa!). It was all kinds of 70’s hotness, and it may be why I totally dig grasscloth today.
This project was way easier than I dreamed it would be and I’m quite pleased with the end result.
As you can tell from the photos the color changes a bit depending on the time of day. It’s another one of the things I really love about this paper. In my hubs home office the wallpaper plays a supporting role to the built-in bookshelves which is another reason why I didn’t feel the need to go with real (much more expensive) grasscloth.
I painted the register on the wall to match the paper – Waverly Lambs Wool (the color of the guest bedroom walls). That was just a happy accident as I had no idea that color would match so well.
So that’s the story of how I wallpapered for the first time ever and lived to tell the tale. On a diy scale of 1 to 10 – 10 being the hardest, most frustrating project – I would give this a 5. It was time consuming (it took me 2 days working by myself with kids coming to ask me for snacks every 5 minutes) and a little messy, but it was worthwhile. In fact, I may actually wallpaper again……but only if it’s pre-pasted.
Oh, and one other great thing about this wannabe grasscloth paper – it’s wipeable. So if something spills or splats on the walls it’s can be wiped up easily unlike most natural grasscloths.
Have you ever wallpapered before?
*Linking up at Thrifty Decor Chick
It looks great! I'm a Kentucky blogger too….how 'bout you come over and help me do my dining room mmmm'kay? 🙂