One Room Challenge Week 2: Walls Painted and Prepped for Wallpaper

One week in to the One Room Challenge, and already a day late. Sorry folks, it’s May. If you have kids, you know what I mean.

Let’s remember where we started with this little room, shall we?

My first task for was to tackle the wallpaper. I’ve never installed wallpaper, so I researched several tutorials. Two stood out to me as the most helpful.

This one by Addison’s Wonderland was my favorite because she made it look so simple!
I also liked this one by Family Handyman because it was very descriptive and detailed.

So did I hang the wallpaper yet? Not exactly.

After reading the Family Handyman’s post, I wanted to make sure that my walls were correctly prepped for wallpaper. That meant that they needed to be smooth and have a good coat of primer.

As I’ve mentioned before, we flooded in 2016, and we had to redo a lot of the drywall in our house. I was concerned that the texture on the walls would show through the paper, and I also didn’t want it to be terrible to remove later if I changed my mind. If the drywall doesn’t have a good coat of primer, apparently it’s never coming off. Yikes!

I did gather the materials for wallpapering, with the exception of a seam roller — Lowe’s was sold out.

Materials: spackling, putty knife, drywall sander, primer/paint, roller covers (2), paint tray and 2 liners, roller frame, paintbrush, natural sponge (for wiping excess glue), wallpaper adhesive, seam roller (not shown), level, measuring tape, pencil, long metal ruler or drywall tool (to use as a cutting guide), sharp knife and extra blades, and a wallpaper smoothing tool.

wallpaper materials — Gathering the supplies — aka the easy part!

Here’s how I prepped the walls for wallpaper:

First, I filled in the nail holes with DryDex spackling and a putty knife. I like this brand because it goes on pink and turns white when it’s dry. I’m super impatient to finish projects, so I like that I can easily tell if it’s still wet.
Next, I used a drywall sander and sanding sheets to make sure there wasn’t too much texture or any spots on the wall that would stick out and show through the paper. This went really quickly with the large sander.
After sanding, I used a damp rag to wipe down the walls and baseboards, getting rid of any sanding dust.
Finally, I was ready to paint/prime the walls.

I ended up using a combo paint and primer all-in-one because I had some leftover from a previous project. Also, I wanted to bring the gray from the study into the foyer. After thinking through the flow of the room, I thought it would be too choppy to have wallpaper, white walls, and gray walls all together in such an open space.

plain walls in the foyer — The current status this week — no wallpaper, but it’s a process. I’m super excited to paint the doors dark now that the whole room is gray. I think it’s really going to stand out and provide some contrast to the medium gray tones.

I’m really excited about how the warm gray paint works with the wallpaper.

I also made a few changes to the design board this week, including changing the light fixture to something more modern, swapping out the rug for a simpler version, and going with a darker color on the buffet. I’m all over the place with that buffet color. What about a dark green? I think that is a decision I’ll make once more pieces are in the room.