A few months ago I saw a post on Centsational Girl about hanging beadboard wallpaper. I never knew such a thing even existed. I knew it would be a perfect project for our teeny laundry room quarter-bath (just a commode - the sink is in the laundry room proper).
It is near impossible to get a good photo of this little bathroom because of how small it is. It is about 3 feet x 5 feet.
Here is a composite before picture:
Not bad. Just kind of boring.
I bought the wallpaper at Lowe's and the brand is Allen & Roth. It is an unusual "paper." It is actually a very thin foam like material with a paper backing. I'll give you my tips for working with it in a minute.
Here's my random pet peeve of the day - I hate seeing pictures of people's bathrooms with the toilet seat up. It takes 1/100th of second to shut it and looks so much better in photos.
I used to hang wallpaper for a living. That gave me just a teeny advantage for this project but honestly it was pretty easy to work with. If I was brand new to wallpapering I don't think I would tackle a bathroom as my first project. I'm tempted to do my eating area in the kitchen and I know that would be a breeze - all flat walls, no tight places and no toilet to wallpaper behind.
As you can see by the top picture our walls are pretty heavily textured. I hung a sample piece first to see if the thickness of the wallpaper would cover it. It did not. So I hung blank-stock first. Blank-stock is just a heavy paper that covers texture. You hang that first then hang your decorative paper over it.
I used heavy duty wallpaper paste for the blank-stock but the beadboard wallpaper is pre-pasted. 20 some odd years ago when I did this for a living I would not hang pre-pasted wallpaper. It didn't stick very well. I would just treat it like regular wallpaper and use thinned down paste. However this pre-pasted worked brilliantly.
Here are a few tips for working with this particular paper:
- Use a fresh blade for every cut - I used a snap-off Olfa cutter and after trimming each piece I would snap off the top so I had a fresh blade. Otherwise you get a ragged cut.
- Since the paper is a foam like material it dents and dings very easily so take your time and be very careful. Take off your rings and make sure your nails are short.
- The paper is paintable (and I would highly recommend painting it) but make sure you scrupulously clean off any paste residue before painting. Otherwise you end up with a crackle paint like finish.
I am really pleased with how it turned out and, like I said, I may do the eating area in our kitchen. The laundry room is off the eating area and I think it would tie it all together nicely.
