We wall papered our room, ourselves!

It took us the whole afternoon on a Saturday to wallpaper one of the wall in our room, just the 2 of us and 4 hours to be exact. It wasn't the perfect wallpaper and the end result wasn't perfect either but it didn't matter. It was our first time experimenting with wallpaper and we decided to go with something safe and we're happy with the outcome.

Before

After

Surprisingly we didn't find the process difficult but for sure it requires a lot of patience and interest and not something you can do on your own especially if you have a huge wall. We've enjoyed it and looks like there will be more projects in the coming weekends at home lol.

Cost

• we bought from Korea Wallpaper at RM350 per roll, we used only 1 roll for our 14ft x 9ft wall
• a set of DIY kits available from Korea Wallpaper at RM29.90 (it consist of a packet of powder adhesive, a roller, a scraper, a sponge, a penknife and some instructions)

Instructions

1. Take exact measurement of the height of your wall, then provide 2 extra inches on both ends when cutting.
2. Lay and stick newspapers on your floor (so that when you roll the glue over the wallpaper, you will not mess up your floor) and cut the wallpaper to your desired length.
3. When you've finished cutting the wallpapers, prepare the glue. Mix the powder adhesive with water (follow the instructions given on the wrapper) and stir until it becomes gluey. Get your kids to help and turn it into a family project :)
4. Use the roller and roll the glue onto the back of the wallpaper evenly. Ensure you've got glue everywhere and especially the corners and sides (from our personal experience, it would be easier with more glue)
5. Stick the first wallpaper to the far left/right of the wall, leave 2 inches at the top and bottom. Once you've got the wallpaper properly glued to the wall (ie it is not too sticky and should still be movable if needs to but yet it won't fall off when you remove your hand), trim off the 2 extra inches at the top using a penknife (I prefer scissors). Then use the scraper to scrape off extra glue or bubbles by pushing them to the sides (you will see glue coming out from the sides). Use a wet cloth to wipe them away (do not wipe too hard or too many times as your wallpaper might tear). Once you're satisfied with the wallpaper, then trim off the 2 inches at the bottom. If you have power sockets/switches on the wall, use a penknife and cut an X across the sockets to create some space and then scrape the sides of the wallpaper nicely to the sides of the sockets. Trim off the middle section with a penknife.
6. Repeat the above until you have the entire wall properly covered - make sure the patterns of the wallpaper are in order when you affix the subsequent pieces. For the last piece, in addition to the top and bottom, you might also need to trim off the sides depending on the size of your wall.
7. Lastly, wipe the wallpaper thoroughly to remove excess glue on the surface. 

Korea Wallpaper also provide free DIY classes on Sunday from 10am to 5pm (30 mins per class) but we were too lazy to go and decided to check out tutorials available on Youtube instead :)

And lastly, if you're too lazy to do this on your own, you can pay the professionals to do it. Korea Wallpaper charges RM200 per roll (price would be cheaper if you have more rolls, eg RM170 per roll for 2 rolls etc) and they also provide 5 years warranty if you engage their service.  The only downside is you will need to wait as their schedules are usually quite full (when we enquired, we were told we need to wait a month!).

So there you go and if you do decide to try this on your own at some point, share your success stories with me and show me your new room :)

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 5