Your walls hold the décor of your home together, so choosing the right paint and wallpaper is crucial to creating a living space that is bold, beautiful, and uniquely you. One of the newest trends in interior design is to combine the solid colors of paint with the brighter and more defining patterns and images that you can achieve using wall coverings. These four easy steps can help you redecorate your home so that it looks like it was designed by a professional, yet reflects your personality and passions.
Choose Your Colors and Designs
If you don’t have a clear idea of what you want to do, the best way to draw inspiration is by looking through magazines or online at homes that you want to imitate. If you are doing a major overhaul, start an idea book, using clippings from magazines, wallpaper samples, scraps of fabric, and photographs that inspire you. Take your idea book to the DIY store when it’s time to start picking out colors and wallpapers, and take home some paint and paper samples to see how the colors work with your existing furniture and upholstery. Don’t limit yourself – you can look at wallpaper borders, peel ‘n’ stick designs, and even bring in something from home if you want to color match the paint.
Prep Your Walls
Prepping your walls is essentially the same for both paint and wallpaper. First remove any existing wallpaper from the walls, including borders. If there are any noticeable imperfections in the walls, such as holes, dings, or obvious drywall seams, you can fill these in with drywall mud, or joint compound, and sand them smooth once dry. This works over existing paint. Then use a quality primer over the wall – you may need to apply two coats if the walls are dark. It is a good idea to use primer even if you are wallpapering, although you won’t need to roll it on as thick.
Start Painting and Pasting
After you have prepped your walls and used painter’s tape over molding, baseboards, or joints that you don’t want painted, get to painting and pasting! Use a small brush to cut in the corners and edges of walls that you will be painting. and roll out the paint using long up-and-down strokes. Wallpapering is known for being a messy process, but papers that are applied by brushing the adhesive onto the wall and simply positioning the paper onto that are becoming popular. Some types of wall coverings are even made to be removable, so installation is a breeze.
Let It Dry
Wallpaper should be dry within a few hours, but paint can take up to a week to fully dry and cure. With proper ventilation, it should only take three to four hours for paint fumes to be completely gone from the room, and you should be able to touch the walls by then as well. However, you should wait a week before removing painter’s tape or hanging up any pictures, coat hangers, wall hangings, etc. With these easy steps, your home can look like it was designed by a professional in no time.
