How To Hang Peel and Stick Wallpaper (and why I chose it)
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How To Hang Peel and Stick Wallpaper (and why I chose it)

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How to hang peel and stick wallpaper plus tips and reasons why you should! 

Hello friends! I’m back today sharing our downstairs guest bath.

I mentioned on Tuesday that I had also finished wallpapering this room too. If you missed that post, it’s the one where I painted our foyer ceiling darker. You can see it here.
And all of these changes I am planning in our home is in this post here. (<<< you can also see all the other wallpaper choices I was considering for this guest bath…and yes, one of the ones I showed is one I picked!)

I’m going to share a few tips on hanging peel and stick wallpaper, plus basically how to hang peel and stick wallpaper too. It’s pretty basic but there are a few things to keep in mind. I’ll share a few tips too.

How To Hang Peel and Stick Wallpaper (and more importantly…why I chose it! And why you might want to too.)

Here is our bathroom “before”. (well, after I gave it 3 different makeovers since moving in years ago!)

coastal bathroom with sea salt walls and driftwood accents

I love (love, love!) the Sea Salt paint and the light, bright airy feel of it. I love how “spa-like” it is. BUT I am ready for a change.
I want something a little more, oh, I don’t know, elegant, snazzy?? Different. Just different.

And you know what?? Peel and stick wallpaper fits that bill! No painting…and no real wallpaper mess to deal with.

You know what that means?? No real wallpaper to remove once I’m ready for another change!! Ha!! And bonus, I’ll just peel this right back off and my pretty Sea Salt walls will still be under here to shine again when I’m ready.

That’s the first reason why you should consider peel and stick wallpaper. 

It’s fun and it adds style, change and more. Then you can take it right back off easily when you are ready for another change…or just want to go back to what you had before. Love that!

Here’s the one I chose…

denim blue wallpaper with coral and green accents

I liked the colors and I liked the design. You can find it >>>here.

Remove everything from the walls

bronze light fixture on sea salt wall

I took the mirror down and I actually loosened up the light fixture so it was away from the wall. (I turned off the circuit breaker too)

Don’t forget lightswitch plates, etc.

sea salt wall with brackets

I also ended up taking these brackets for the floating shelves off too. I had thought I’d work around them.
Trust me when I say, take it all off!! It will make your job SO much easier.

Clean the walls

I filled the holes for the canvas print I had on this wall…

sea salt wall with holes filled in

I knew I wouldn’t be hanging it back up here so I filled them.
I’m thinking I will leave it blank for now.

 

I also wiped the walls down with alcohol and a old tshirt before beginning.

Cutting and hanging

For the first piece, I measured the wall leaving adding an inch or two overlap.

tape measure and cutting mat for paper

I used my cutting mat for every cut. You can find it here.

I hung it to the right of the door of the bathroom to begin. (so that I would end in the “far” corner on the other side of the door)
You’ll want to end in a place less conspicuous in case your pattern does not match up at the end. Which it most likely will not.

I used my wallpaper smoothing tool to scrape down the paper and remove air, etc.

using smoothing tool to smooth wallpaper

first panel of wallpaper on wall

Trimming

I cut the bottom with an X-Acto knife.

xacto knife trimming bottom of paper

This just makes applying it so easy. Just cut an inch or two longer than you need (don’t forget to match your pattern and then measure from there…then add the extra inch or two!)

When adding the next sheet, be sure to match the pattern and overlap the seams a bit. Approx. 1/16 of an inch.
The reason for overlapping is to account for slight changes in temperature which could created shrinkage, etc., so not to have gaps.

using smoothing tool to smooth seam

Here’s a seam, right down the middle of the yellow flower. Very hard to see!

finished seam almost invisible

Corners

When doing corners, I overlapped the corner by about 1/2-1 inch. It’s so much easier to overlap it onto the next wall than trying to get a nice straight seam in the middle of the corner. This way you can start again with a new panel on the next wall right next to that small overlap.

corner overlapped

Be sure to cut around your holes for easier finding when you put things back up. PLUS you want your paper smooth around them, so don’t try to just simply paper over top of them.

showing another seam

Issues that may come up

This was the only thing I could not remove. And do you want to know why?? Because I glued it with E6000 glue to the wall. Haha!
It was soooo wobbly and I could not get it tight so I said to heck with that a few years back and just glued it. And now that sucker is not going anywhere!! lol

So, obviously I was going to have to work around it.

towl ring holder

Not fun but I made it work.

And by made it work, I mean that I tried to cut around the round part (didn’t work) and so next I try to cut a small section and pull the ring through (didn’t work). Then I actually ended up ripping the paper…oops. But happy surprise, it worked!!

towel ring and wallpaper underneath

I’m pointing to the jagged ripped paper put back together under the ring…you can NOT even tell. It came together perfectly.

BUT…

I had some yucky cuts around the attached portion.

towl ring with edge of wallpaper around it

See the white where it’s not quite seamless?

And this one. Boo.

towl ring with missing wallpaper around it

So I pulled out some blue paint and a small paintbrush and touched it up that way.

painting in where missing wallpaper is

It worked great!

painted where wallpaper was missing

Finishing up

For the final piece, I ended up in this corner as I mentioned above.

corner seam

And no, it does not match pattern but it’s okay. It’s really not noticable in this corner. See?

final corner

And that’s it, done!!

Welcome to the Jungle room as my sweet husband called it!! haha!!

looking into the finished bathroom

driftwood bath cabinet, gold mirror colorful wallpaper

I love it! It’s so fun and different.

colorful wallpaper, green plant, wood shelves

I’m probably going to change the decor on the shelves since that’s what I had up there before. (except that small basket, it’s new-thrifted)
I’ll update this post if I do!

wood shelves with blue print white frame, seashells, picture and basket

I’m going to keep this wall empty for the time being, or maybe forever. There’s a lot going on with this paper so I don’t think anything needs to be here.

wall with wallpaper and white curtain

wallpapered wall with gold trim mirror over sink

I just love these long tea towels.

tea towel twisted onto towel ring

window with white curtain and white shiplap with colorful wallpaper above

I’m thrilled with the new look. And even more thrilled knowing that if I decided I don’t love it anymore, I can simply peel it right back off!

sink base in driftwood finish, white sink, gold mirror, green plant, shiplap walls and colorful wallpaper

What do you think? Do you like my choice?? I kind of have a feeling this is going to be a “love it” or “hate it” project!! 😉

Either way, do you think you’d give peel and stick wallpaper a try??

PIN it to save it!

How to hang peel and stick wallpaper plus tips and reasons why you should! artsychicksrule.com

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

xoxo