Looks simple enough. …Right?
I had big plans for today’s post, about wallpapering my daughter’s room. My great-grandfather, you see, was a professional wallpaper hanger, and I have this old newspaper clipping with a black-and-white photo of him hanging paper in Rockefeller Center just before it opened. I was going to write about how everyone told me hanging wallpaper was hard, but it’s in my blood, and triumphantly post shots of my stunning new wallpaper along with how-to tips and tricks and such.
And then I Googled “how to hang wallpaper.”
Long story short, I hired an expert to put it up. But I did hang around and watch the wallpaper hanger, Candace, while she worked, thereby confirming once and for all that hanging wallpaper is one of those jobs best left to someone else. (My friend Erin, who is one of the most handy women I know and who thinks nothing of taking on massive home renovation projects all on her lonesome, confirmed to me that wallpaper hanging is miserable. Or more specifically: when I asked her to help me, she said, “No. Hanging wallpaper is miserable. Hire someone to do it.”) Wallpaper hanging is just very finicky; it’s not simply about slapping on some glue and matching up seams. You have to put on the glue a certain way, sort of folding it back in on itself so the pasted parts are stuck together while you apply paste to the next part. You have to pull it just-so against the edge a table to free up the roll. You have to let it soak in to the paper a certain amount of time. And wallpaper stretches, so seam-matching isn’t just, like, matching up pictures; it’s a whole thing.
So apologies that this post isn’t more inspirational and “You can do it!” Maybe you can. I can’t. At least not without potentially sacrificing the life and sanctity of my wallpaper, and this Anewall wallpaper was wayyyyy too beautiful to risk. When I look at it, it’s like can already see my daughter’s memories of her childhood forming right in front of me; how she’ll remember laying there at night pretending to play with the bunnies and pat the deer on their heads, and how magical and real it all felt.
Wallpaper | Unicorn Nightlight | Pink Velvet Chair
Terracotta Moon Phases | Needlepoint by Erin
Spot the cat.
