Our downstairs bathroom was one of those rooms I had a notion I wanted to make it a drastic contrast to the rest of the house. It’s small and really any mistakes made there wouldn’t be the end of the world. We have no wallpaper in the house so I wanted to see what it would be like to give it a shot and there are so many beautiful designs out there it was a DIY I was itching to try. And I wanted to see how much I could transform the room on a budget. After many months of keeping an eye out for the right wallpaper I came across this navy, floral beauty in The Range. I figured it was safer, given it was my first attempt, to stick to something cheap and cheerful, and I’m glad I did because I wasted quite a bit through mistakes!! Now first things first, choosing to do a room that had only one ‘straightforward’ wall as the first place you ever wallpaper was probably not the best idea. I had to tackle corners, go round a door, a window and a light fixture. Nothing like a challenge eh! Honestly though, after the first evening trying it and with nothing more than one strip up after hours of failure I was ready to give up, but persevere I did. It took me a week of evenings to get it finished, I’m glad I did it, the transformation is amazing but it was hard and it was messy and it’s far from perfect but it’s grand! Another tip I picked up which seemed contrary to all the YouTube clips I watched, was to wait until after the wallpaper is dry (so the next day really) before you trim it at the top and bottom. I tried once or twice to trim it while i was still soggy and it bunched and ripped so I had to take it down. I had about 2 inches over on the top and bottom and I simply wiped the excess glue off with a sponge before letting it hang free until the next day when it was ten times easier to trim. I bought a bag of wallpaper paste and in my enthusiasm made up the whole bag which probably would have done half the house so that was a total waste. Start off by making up small quantities, granted the glue, once I wrapped it in cling film was ok to use for the entire week but still there was quite a bit of waste.I had no suitable table so I put the glue on so I had to do it on the floor so I used rolls of silage wrap (ha!) to protect the floor, its a messy job and you need to go over the edges with the glue so give yourself plenty of space. If you are new to wallpapering choose a pattern that you don’t have to match, this one only had to be matched in one part and to be honest if it didn’t match it’s not hugely noticeable. A stripe or even floral wallpaper with nothing overlapping would be a good place to start! The project cost me in total less than €100, I used three rolls of wallpaper at €15 each, which was excessive but I made a few mistakes and had to throw away a few strips that just didn’t work out. I used a small pot of chalk paint in Belgrave from Rustoleum that I used to paint around the window and also a shelf, this matched the wallpaper beautifully so I’m delighted with it. I still have a notion I’m going to paint the tiles on the lower half of the wall but time alludes me these days so who knows when I’ll get round to that job! And while I did find the overall project quite hard I have to say I absolutely ADORE the bathroom and everyone who comes to visit is suitably impressed!! 

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