DIY · No. 965

DIY fabric wallpaper

BY: anastasia foggy

The second episode on “inspired interiors” follows the making of my dream nursery. The whole nursery is designed around a fabric swatch I saw in the studio and wished to be wallpaper. Sarah had heard of people using fabric as wallpaper but had never done it. That’s our cue to try it 🙂

Luckily, we finished the wallpapering the weekend before I went into labor! And Sarah finished the nursery just as we walked in the door, home from the hospital, with baby Bernadette. Yes, that was truly us coming home from the hospital! We are happy to have it recorded to show Birdie someday.

supplies

fabric
liquid starch: this brand was superior to the other brand we tried.
fabric scissors
paint roller brush
paint tray
tacks or tiny nails
step ladder

You will want at least 2 people to do this.

Before you do anything wash your fabric. If you don’t, it will shrink as the starch dries and you will have to take it off after it dries and realign it. We learned this the hard way. And instead of washing we ended up having to roll the starch on the fabric, let it dry and re-hang.

step 1
cover your floor with a plastic drop cloth. the starch gets sticky but if anything gets on the floor it is easily wiped away with water.

step 2
roll starch on wall only where you will be placing the current piece of fabric.

step 3
place the fabric on the wall starting by lining it with the ceiling and working down.

step 4
as you work down take your roller and roll starch on top of the fabric (you want to saturate the fabric with starch)

step 5
for each piece of fabric you will have to line up the patterns. to help keep things aligned we placed tacks along as we aligned the pattern. the lines where each panel of fabric meets will seem very visible but will blend in as it dries!

step 6
allow to dry for 24 hours.

This was after we finished for the day. You can still see the lines of where the fabric lines up but once it dries it will blend in. You might have noticed we didn’t line up the top of the fabric perfectly to the ceiling that is because we would later cover with trim.

BEFORE AND AFTER

Everything turned out even better than I imagined! Birdie smiles everytime we take her into her room, she points at the dalmations and loves to feel the wall. I imagine these sweet puppies will be something she remembers forever and I can’t wait to name each and every one of them with her!

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