Wallpaper Woes

Well the wallpaper I ordered for the guest bedroom finally arrived.

Unfortunately trying to install it didn’t quite work out so well.  If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen my Instastory where I shared my wallpaper woes.

In a nutshell, I got into a fight with the wallpaper and it won.  😉

But I’ve Wallpapered Before

I’ve wallpapered before.  With no real issues.  In fact, I thought it was a fairly simple, straightforward process.  In the past I’ve used pre-pasted wallpaper.  The kind you wet with water to activate the paste before adhering the paper to the wall.  I’ve used this kind of wallpaper both in our current home (check out our entry foyer and the back of our living room bookcases) and in our Kentucky home (see the office, the closet turned mudroom, the guest room closet, the boy’s closet and the kids’ bathroom).

While the process of installing pre-pasted wallpaper is somewhat lengthy and slightly messy, it’s totally doable.  I shared a simple tutorial for how to install pre-pasted wallpaper in this post here.  It’s not a DIY project that makes you want to scream profanities at inanimate objects 😉 ……..though hanging the kind of wallpaper I just lost a battle with is a completely different story.   At least it was for me.

Self-Adhesive Paper

The wallpaper I just fought with was not traditional.  It’s self-adhesive, removable, re-positionable wallpaper.  It sounds great…..in theory.  You peel the back off of the paper and stick it on the wall.  It’s basically one big, giant sticker.  If you want to remove it, you just peel it right off the wall, no mess, no fuss.  Since so often people opt to steer clear of wallpaper for the fear of ever having to remove it, this stuff eliminates that fear.  If you’ve ever removed traditional wallpaper and lived to tell about it, you can understand why this kind of wallpaper would be appealing.  And now this kind of paper comes in so many great patterns!

So What Went Wrong?

This paper is very sticky.  I had an Elf in the mailroom moment with stickiness not suckiness.   It’s veeeeerrry sticky.  As soon as you peel the back away you have to position it perfectly.  There’s no wiggle room like with traditional paper.   Traditional paper you can sort of schmoosh around (yes, schmoosh is a word) before the paste dries giving you time to get it positioned perfectly, the self-adhesive paper sticks immediately.  If you need to re-position you have to peel it away from the wall and try again.

I could have handled that part of it, even though it was somewhat of a headache.  If that had been the only real troublesome part of installing I would’ve kept going.

Unfortunately that wasn’t my only problem.

After I got the panel exactly where I wanted it and smoothed the paper out, I noticed a few little air bubbles.  That’s not uncommon when working with wallpaper.  With traditional paper you can smooth out air bubbles easily.

In this case there were more than just a few air bubbles.  And as soon as I would get done smoothing them out,  a few more would appear in a different area.  I even did the little pin trick where you pop the bubble to let the air out and then smooth it out.  That only halfway worked.  It just seemed like I couldn’t get one full panel to lay flat against the wall.  Air bubbles just kept popping up seemingly no matter what I did.

Why Didn’t I Persevere?

To me, if a DIY project causes a super high level of frustration and you can’t see a way to get over the hurdle, it’s time to call it quits.  It could be that I’m just not great at installing this kind of paper.  I’m certainly not saying that this wallpaper is the problem……it could absolutely be due to user error.  I know a number of design bloggers have used this kind of paper with great results.

It could be that the wall is not completely flat or smooth enough for this kind of paper to work.  It could be a lot of things.  But I just didn’t think it was worth any more of my time and effort.  After about 8 hours and only having 3 panels installed of which all 3 panels had air bubbles on them, I decided it was time to call it quits.  This just isn’t something I could do.  You win some; you lose some.

The paper I bought has a 90 day return policy, so I plan to return the panels that weren’t installed.  The return policy was another reason why after having so much trouble I decided it was better to stop than try and persevere.

It’s Not a Total Loss

Any project you try no matter the end result is not a fail.  The only real fail is not trying at all.  I tell that to my kids all the time.  I’m trying to find solace in those words.  😉  The truth is though you really only learn by attempting to do things you don’t already know how to do.  And in the world of DIY you’ll never know what you can or can’t do until you jump in and give something a shot.  What I’ve learned is that this kind of paper is not fun for me to work with, and I prefer installing pre-pasted papers.

So What Now?

So now on to plan B.  I won’t be wallpapering the headboard wall.  I’ve decided to go in a different direction design wise.  And I’m actually really excited about it!  The money I’ll recoup from the wallpaper will be going toward something else that I think will look really great!  So stay tuned…….eventually the guest bedroom will be done.

Why Share Fails?

I think it’s helpful to share what works and what doesn’t.  I hope this post doesn’t discourage you from trying projects in your home but rather inspires you to try new things because you just never know unless you try!  I think this wallpaper is beautiful and I wish it would have worked out for me.  I just don’t have the patience for this one.  I wanted to share my honest opinion and experience with you because if nothing else I hope you find encouragement in hearing that we all have fails sometimes.

On to the next……….