How To Hang Floral Wallpaper

Hanging wallpaper doesn't have to be a daunting job.

With the right tools and a little bit of planning you can transform your room in no time to get professional results.

And the flower filled cottage of your dreams.


Last spring, after months of searching for a floral couch, I threw my hands up, ordered a checked one and decided to go with floral wallpaper instead.

Perhaps you remember my design plan and the beautiful rolls of paper I was gifted from Calico Corners.

Well, since then, I've been working on outdoor renovations, enjoying summer weather and waiting on my custom couch.

However now that there's a slight chill in the air, and my designer let me know that my sofa is nearing completion, my husband and I decided to hang up that gorgeous wallpaper.

Now, I know we do a lot of DIYs around here, but other than a nursery border and a corner hutch makeover, we'd never worked with wallpaper before.

We had used a peel and stick paper to update our kitchen pantry, but glue was a different story.

And we were a bit intimidated.

Turns out, once we sat down, planned it out and gathered our tools, the job took us no time at all to complete.

Done in a Saturday morning, before the kids were even awake.

And it looks fabulous.

Want to try it yourself? Stick to these quick and easy tips. And yes, I said stick. 😉

Hanging Floral or Patterned Wallpaper

To start we headed to the paint store for our supplies. Believe it or not Home Depot did not have a wallpaper section.

I was shocked, but that's ok, the paint pros at our local shop were amazing and set us up right.

Here are the wallpaper supplies we used:

A long table and a canvas tarp went into the room first. The table was clean and dry and able to withstand a lot of water.

The tarp was canvas, rather than plastic, to protect our new vinyl floor. It was a little more expensive, but totally worth the investment.

It was heavy and stayed put, we didn't slip or slide walking on it and it absorbed all the overspray. 

On plastic, it would've puddled up, made a mess and caused a tripping hazard.


A large bucket for water
A spray/ misting bottle - This one is great
Wallpaper sponge
Wallpaper smoothing brush 
Wallpaper seam roller
Razor blades- lots of them
Plastic or metal straightedge
Canvas tarp - Way better than plastic
Scissors
Pencils
Long level
Card table
Ladder
Measuring tape
Wallpaper - Mine is Magnolia Home Heirloom Rose

Of course it goes without saying that you'll have the wallpaper on hand and you'll have enough of it to take into account all the pattern matching that's necessary. 

And the waste that goes along with it.

The hanging process:

We started with clean, dry, painted walls.

We painted the room in the spring, so they were fully cured. If you're working with freshly painted walls, you should wait several weeks before applying the paper. 

1. Measure your paper and mark your wall

Take the time to plan. It was crucial.

Keep in mind that you should always start in a corner and you'll want a few inches to wrap around the corner on that first piece.

This way you can cut in the corner perfectly. Houses aren't always straight and if you use the corner of the room as a straightedge and it's not square, the rest of your paper hanging will be a mess.

And your flowers will be crooked. Not good.

First, we measured the width of the paper. 

 
Then, using a level, we measured the wall, from the corner we were going to start in, and drew a pencil line, a few inches shorter than the width of the paper.

That's the line we used to set the first sheet.


I know...math. Not the most creative part of the project, but if you do it right, the rest of the DIY is a breeze.

2. Cut the wallpaper

Once we had our straight line set, it was time to cut that first piece of paper with scissors.

We cut it so that it was several inches longer than the height of our wall. That left us excess so we could trim it perfectly along the floor and ceiling mouldings.


Since, just like those corners, floors and ceilings aren't always straight. Especially in older houses.

3. Use a spray bottle

This trick was amazing. It was recommended on the instruction sheet and it worked amazingly well. 

Dealing with the glue was the scary part, but the spray made easy work of the process.

I used a bottle from Dixie Belle, it's a mister, made for chalk painting. It didn't spray, it spread an even layer of water with each long pump. 

It was perfect for the job.


We just laid the paper on the table, pattern side down, and sprayed the entire surface with water. We made sure to get every last bit of paper very wet. 

Most importantly, the edges and corners.

Then we folded the paper onto itself for about 2-3 minutes, for the glue to activate.

A quick tip? Keep a few dry rags on hand to wipe the table down before you start with a new sheet of paper. 

4. Use a wallpaper brush

At this point, it was time to get that paper on the wall. We grabbed the ladder and unfolded the paper.



We lined it up with our pencil mark and pressed it onto the wall.

Again, we set it a few inches above the wood trim and some of it wrapped around the corner. To keep in place, we used a sweeping motion with a wallpaper brush.

It worked the bubbles out from behind the paper and smoothed over any wrinkles. 

5. Use a seam roller

Once we were sure the paper was on the wall well, and we were satisfied with the way it looked. No bubbles or wrinkles, we ran the seam roller along the edge of the wallpaper.


We rolled it along the seam from top to bottom to lock that edge in place.

6. Trim the excess paper

This is where all those super sharp razor blades come into play. And trust me, we used a lot of them. 

A really, really sharp edge is the key to a neat cut. If your blade is even the tiniest bit dull or tacky from the glue, the paper will rip.

And that is no good.


We pushed that straight edge right up against the moulding and ran the blade along it. We worked in small sections, trimming away the excess paper along the floor and ceiling.

And along that first corner.

7. Wipe away the glue

The last step in this process was to remove any excess glue. We did that by dipping one of the sponges into a bucket of clean water, wringing it out well and then running it over the top of the wallpaper.


This also gave us one last chance to make sure the edges were secure and the paper was sticking to the wall without any noticeable lumps or bumps.

Just make sure your sponge isn't too wet. That could damage the paper or cause it to tear.

8. Matching flowers or patterns with the next sheet

With the first sheet up, it was time for another. We were pretty confident about our paperhanging skills at this point. 

Our biggest challenge moving forward was going to be matching the intricate florals and words, making sure everything lined up.


To do that, we had to unroll the paper enough to locate the part of the pattern that was already on the wall.  

We then cut the paper, leaving about 3" above that spot and 3" below and repeated the entire process, from the spraying to the sponging.

The only difference was that this time, rather than dealing with a corner, we pushed the paper right up against the seam of that first sheet. 

No overlap, just as close as we could get it.

And then we smoothed them out with that handy little roller.

 

9. Wallpapering around windows 

We cut the paper around the electrical outlet and used our straightedge and razors to cut in the window trim.

We did try a smaller craft knife at one point, thinking it would be better for detail work. It worked well on peel and stick wallpaper and contact paper installation.

But this paper was wet, not a thick vinyl like the others. The razor blades worked best.


The only tricky part was working above the window.  

Since there was only a small strip there, we didn't have enough repeat to line up several parts of the pattern to be confident that we were still straight. 

And the ceiling was not a reliable guide.

So to be sure, we ran our level along the top of the tiny print on the next sheet. The level doesn't lie.

With the window behind us, we continued along the rest of the wall, until we reached the corner. Since we were only doing the one wall, we trimmed it there and we were done.


That green wall had been transformed into a giant bouquet of red and pink roses.
 
A cottage style garden room in making.

Exactly how I had envisioned it.


And all before breakfast.

Gotta love that.


Of course, the new sofa won't be delivered for a month...maybe two. 

In the meantime, however, I did get my window seat cushion back and it is fantastic.

Here's a sneak peek.

Much better than the old floral sofa that's currently parked in front of that floral wallpaper.

Oh boy...

Have you ever wallpapered? 

Disclosure: this post was sponsored by Calico Corners. All opinions are my own. Please see my disclosure page for more information.