Recently, OKL had a sale on Wall Pops removeable wallpaper stripes and I got a wild hair and decided to purchase some for the kids' bathroom. I turned their all khaki bathroom into a khaki and red striped Dr. Seuss* looking jungle! Here's an after shot (sometimes I think it's fun to show the finished product so I can lure your interest). *btw, I was not intentionally trying to make it look like Dr. Seuss but now I can't get this out of my head.
Keep reading for the nitty gritty....
Removeable wallpaper is the coolest thing since 3 day wash out hair dye... it allows the non-commital humans to try a style, and then take it all back down if not happy with it. I've written about it before here but have never actually gotten my hands on the material itself to see how easy it is to work with.
One King's Lane happened to be selling Wallpops and, on a whim, I decided the red stripe would look super cute in the kids' bathroom with the circular red mirrors already in there. I have been on a semi-DIY kick lately and this seemed like just the right amount of elbow grease I usually like to put into my projects (read, little to no effort).
Here's the before: (and yes, I was too lazy to fix that towel...besides, before photos are supposed to look bad aren't they?)
The first stripe goes up. I decided to work from the top of the ceiling and go down. And no, I did not space the stripes exactly apart. My plan of attack was to just visualize where the next stripe would look the best.
Once I visualized where the next line would look best (let's say 24 inches down from the ceiling), I did use a tape measure and measure from the ceiling down the wall 24 inches and put a small dot on the wall in several spots across the 24" mark so that I could be sure the stripe would be straight across the wall. The great thing about these stripes is that they easily peel right back up if they happened to be going crooked up the wall.
Helpful hints:
1. I cut the width of my stripe longer than what I needed across the wall. I used an exacto knife to cut a straight edge at the corner so there was a better ending. (This still did not stop my husband from making a remark that the bathroom looked like a dorm room project. "Are you sure you don't want to hire a professional to do this job?" ....He spent about an hour in the dog house but after some serious kissin up to me, I decided to forgive him, plus he took the comments back after the exacto knife edges were cut...and I may or may not have flicked that exacto in his direction.
2. Work from the ceiling to the floor
3. Use an exacto knife to 'edge' the corners
4. If doing more than one wall, use measure tape to keep stripes consistent with each other
5. You'll need more of these wall pops rolls than you think you will! An entire bedroom will eat at your budget! Stick to smaller spaces. I had to go back and order more of these babies and the OKL sale was over. These things can add up quickly.
6. Do some, walk away, then do some more. It's easy to feel like it looks cheap when you're in the midst of this project but if you step away and give a fresh set of eyes, all of those little mistakes you were privy to the first time, can't be seen when you walk back into the room. (unless of course your husband points them out to you. In which case, find that exacto knife and flick it. Works like a charm).
xoxoxo
Heather
