I didn’t get as far as I’d hoped on the bathroom this weekend because I was a little distracted by other things (as I’m sure a lot of us were), but the good news is that I got most of the walls ready for painting today. That’s why I’ll show you my process and progress.
I started by deciding on the order in which I wanted to paint the 35 colors that make up this wall design. That probably took the longest. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to be completely random or if I wanted to group the colors in similar colors. In the mockup I made, I displayed the colors in a very random order…
I think this is why several people thought that the colors on this model were different from the colors on the model of the wallpaper with the squares. The colors of the background image are arranged so that they are more grouped by color. It’s not a perfect grouping, but you can see what I mean. The placement of the colors is not completely random, and I did that consciously when designing the wallpaper.
I think grouping the colors like this gives them a softer look. Ultimately I decided to do the same for the stripe design as well, so this is the final arrangement I decided on. After making the decision, I numbered them from 1 to 35.
Then I had to determine the width of the strips. I decided to make it as simple as possible and just use my long spirit level as the width of the strips. This way there would be no need to measure and mark each strip. I simply placed the level along the previous line and lightly drew the next line with a pencil. Since I marked the lines as thinly as possible, they may be hard to see, but if you look closely they are there.
When I got to that wall I was faced with a bit of a challenge. Obviously I couldn’t mark these areas with the four foot level, so I had to actually measure and mark them. I wasn’t expecting any complications here, but I actually had trouble getting the lines to line up perfectly so that they met exactly on the other side of the window. This took me a few tries to get right. Luckily, pencil marks can be removed very quickly and easily with a Magic Eraser.
And after the vertical lines were drawn, I divided the height into thirds and marked those lines with my level. Again, I’m sorry it’s so hard to see, but I wanted to mark them as easily as possible since pencil marks often bleed through the paint.
Once that was done, I started numbering each strip. I started at the top row, established my starting point, and then numbered the stripes running through the room from 1 to 35. Then I moved down to the second row and, under strip number 13 on the top row, began numbering the middle row from 1 to 35, repeating this all the way around. And then I did the same thing on the bottom row, starting the numbering on the bottom row below the number 23 strip on the top row. When I’m ready to paint each stripe, I use my Magic Eraser to erase those numbers as well as any pencil marks that aren’t covered by the painter’s tape just before I paint the stripe. If you look closely you can see the numbers in each strip.
At this point I have most of the walls marked, numbered and ready to tape and paint.
I say “most” because I still struggle with this situation. Let’s just put it this way: If you take the risk and install the wallpaper before the paint underneath has fully cured, you should be confident that the wallpaper is actually intended to last a very long time. Because removing it is just as terrible as removing 3 year old wallpaper that peels off in tiny strips at a time while destroying the wall surface underneath.
This is the Spoonflower wallpaper and I don’t want to give this wallpaper a bad name. I can assure you that this is a user error. If you apply Spoonflower wallpaper to properly primed/painted walls that have been allowed to cure properly before application, this wallpaper will peel off in full sheets. I know because I have personal experience with it. When I removed the original floral wallpaper from the studio walls and installed the larger floral mural, the first wallpaper came off in entire sheets. Removing the wallpaper from the entire wall took about 30 minutes.
So that’s a lesson learned. No matter how anxious I am to finish a project, I really have to wait and do it right. Of course, when I put this wallpaper up, I had no idea that I would turn around and remove it. But no one really expected mistakes like this to happen, right? If I had just waited for the paint to cure first, I wouldn’t be in this situation and would be going full steam ahead on the strip. So learn from my mistake. Curing times for paint are important.
Regardless of that one messy wall, I am still committed to adding color to the walls TODAY. I’m ready to see some color in this room!
