March 16, 2020

My Tips & Tricks for Installing Hanging Grasscloth Wallpaper…

Good morning!!! Today is the first Monday of my new three day a week blogging schedule and I am sooo excited to be sharing my first Monday “home decor” post. I’ll be sharing all things home on Mondays, personal and life and travel and such on Wednesdays and then fashion on Fridays. Now if only this coronavirus would make a quick exit, we could all get back to normal life. All of this craziness is so scary! How quickly our entire nation can just come to a screeching halt is rather terrifying. Saying huge prayers that a good two weeks of closures and “quarantine” will make enough progress that things can get rolling once again. And everyone stays healthy and safe!

Today I am sharing all of my tips and tricks and things I learned from January’s guest bedroom grasscloth wallpaper project. WHEW it was harder than I thought! I have been a pretty big DIY’er over the years. Moreso pre-kiddos when time was on my hands but definitely a DIY’er of sorts over the last few decades. One thing that has always intimated me though is wallpaper!!! Unlike most DIY projects that involve paint and lesser expensive supplies, wallpaper is not cheap. And NOT something you want to mess up! All of the wallpaper in my home prior to this project was professionally installed. In my boutique and event space however, Abigail and I tackled all of the wallpaper ourselves and felt moderately successful. Without having to cut around windows or doors or anything made it much easier but it did give us enough confidence to tackle this grasscloth project several months ago ourselves. We most definitely learned a TON so I am going to share some tips! First, here is what we used…

Supplies Needed:

Staple Gun

Wallpaper Paste

Paint Roller

Paint Tray

Ladder

Paper Towels

Tape Measure

Level

Exacto Knife

Paint Scraper

Before…

First, we cut each piece a few inches longer than what we needed for each run…

Next after a good bit of trial and error, we found it best to apply the paste directly to the paper and not the wall first. With grasscloth, once again since it is so so heavy for wallpaper, we absolutely soaked the paper with paste!

Next since grasscloth is so heavy AND it was being installed essentially upside down, we found it best to secure the very top with a few staples and even a few more along the way…

Next, we started scraping the heavily pasted paper onto the wall section by section starting at the top and then from the inside to the outside allowing the paste the run out the sides. Scrape hard and well to avoid bubbles! We did find it necessary as we made our way down the paper to roll more onto the wall as some of the lesser pasted areas started to dry…

And here it is all complete! Oh and one more last tip… some of the excess paste “stained” the paper once it was dry so I put a thin coat of paste all over the paper the next day and that took care of it!