New Year New Room Challenge Week 3

A lot happened in the pantry and laundry room this week! Spoiler alert: I LOVE IT SO MUCH! ***if you want to skip ahead the reveal is here!**

I’ll go ahead and say that its 85% done. We were able to move the food back in and hook up the washer and dryer so I’m happy just for ‘functioning house’ purposes.

I still have lots of little details I’ll be working on in the next couple weeks. I’m waiting on lighting, the area rug and the paint for the cabinet doors.

What I wanted to talk to you about this week is wallpaper. You probably remember from last weeks post, I picked this Olive Dapple paper from Milton and King.

It’s bright and happy and exactly what I wanted to see from the kitchen when looking into this space. Remember, this is my inspiration.

via Sarah Sherman Samuel

A sweet neighbor friend helped me hang it. I’ve got to say, I was a little nervous to begin installing it. This was the first time I’ve ever used wallpaper paste. I’ve hung temporary wallpaper (a couple times) and prepasted once but the thought of adding an extra step for me in using the paste, made me a little nervous.

The rolls came with very clear instructions. Picture instructions. Those are my jam. Anyway, first you measure out the width of your wallpaper minus 1/2″.

 Then use a level and make a line from the ceiling to the floor. This gives you a guide to follow as you try and get the wallpaper straight.

The wallpaper paste was pretty cheap. I got it at Lowes and only had to buy a quart since I was papering one wall.

You roll on the paste and cut in the edges. Here’s where you can learn from me. The first piece we hung didn’t start out sticking well because I didn’t put on near enough paste. Be generous. You dont want it to be a goopy mess but make sure your wall gets enough so that the paper wants to stick.

You end up cutting off the first 1/2′ from the side and some from the top. This is because your ceilings and walls might not be perfectly straight. You use the leveled line and trim the excess so that the entire wall is covered. I used a straight edge and a utility knife to cut off the excess.

Some wallpapers overlap and some meet together right at the edge so make sure you pay attention to that. Milton and King paper meets at the edge. No overlap required. Before you just hang the second piece you have to make sure and find where the two match up. For example I had to cut off about 8” before the pattern met where I needed it to on the wall. Then I cut above that to once again give the ceiling space to be crooked. The extra can be trimmed off later.

This time we put my more paste on the wall and the paper hung much, much better. Another thing that might have added to the problem is that we have texture on our walls. Most papers and paper installers say they want to float the wall and make it smooth before they start. I know this would make it better but that makes the project seem so much less attainable. More paste, less problem.

Since this was such a small space, each section ended up getting cut to match the wall shape. This part can get a little tricky when you have more than one angle. Just make sure you knife if sharp and you’re making one cut at a time. (not trying to turn a corner in cut).

After the paper was dry we were able to install the shelving. EEEEEEK! I Love it! Have I said that yet?

I can’t even get over how well the greens match. SIGHT UNSEEN. #fistbump

This is where I’ll leave you for today.

Make sure and check out the room progress of my sweet blogging buddies!

Don’t forget you can click the link below to share your progress!

Big thanks to our sponsors. This makeover has been so fun!

Have a great week, yall!

Thanks for reading, friends!