Transforming 101: Riotous Wallpaper in Closets, Cabinets, and Drawers

Editor’s word: That is the fourth in a collection of posts by Sally Kohn— journalist and CNN political commentator, TED discuss giver, and design aficionado—chronicling her adventures in reworking. For earlier installments, see The Case for Unstained Wooden Flooring from a Stealth Design Nerd and The Stunning Virtues of Spray Paint (Plus a Few Suggestions).

We’ve got a conundrum in our home. My companion, Sarah, and I like daring colours. We spend extra hours than we should always flicking by means of the Instagram feeds of daring maximalist designers like Beata Heuman and Nickey Kehoe, drooling on the thought of a purple home or a inexperienced kitchen.  

The issue is we now dwell in a late 1700s financial institution barn transformed right into a home within the Fifties by the legendary woodworker Wharton Esherick, so now we have to honor the period and really feel of the home which undoubtedly favors white partitions towards all of the darkish woodwork.  Additionally, we’re slightly timid in the case of daring design selections. We don’t belief our instincts, or at the very least not but.

So after we determined we needed to have some daring pops of colour and even enjoyable patterns in our new-to-us dwelling, we thought exterior the field—or, really, within the field form of. We put funky wallpapers in our closets. Right here’s what we discovered.

1. Go for peel and stick.

Considered one of our first tasks was placing Tempaper’s Scandi Floral print in our entrance corridor closet.  The peel and stick function makes it extremely straightforward to, properly, peel and stick.  I’ll say that having a slicing board (we used a stitching mat) and a pointy exacto knife was extremely useful, as was the little wallpaper smoother that the corporate despatched—however you can even purchase right here. That little felt coated plastic smoother was particularly helpful, as a result of I discovered that as clean as you assume it’s, you possibly can all the time press the paper much more easily and should you get a tiny wrinkle, you possibly can press arduous and principally clean it out.

2. Paper (or paint) the cabinets, too.

Within the corridor closet, we additionally shortly realized that the wooden lip of the shelf, which had taken a beating through the years, seemed much more unhappy subsequent to the enjoyable shiny new partitions so we bought artistic and added a self-adhesive felt strip in a complimentary inexperienced.  Tremendous enjoyable and that’s now my favourite function of the closet.

3. Spend money on a laser degree.

I’ll say that we should always have discovered sooner to make use of a laser degree. I’ve a Bosch laser degree and as soon as we really realized it could be useful right here (someday in the midst of closet #3) it was a sport changer for getting the sample to be as straight up and down as doable.

4. Be forgiving.

However that being stated, the opposite factor we discovered is that while you’re wanting up shut, you discover each imperfection, place the place the sample doesn’t align, and so on., however as soon as the challenge is completed, after just a few days, the imperfections fade. In reality, we began to have extra enjoyable with the imperfections.  In just a few locations, after we wallpapered a ceiling or an inside facing-wall, we intentionally hung a chunk the other way up. It’s like a goofy secret solely we learn about.

However for these extra important screwups, it helps that it’s only a closet. Thank goodness I didn’t misalign the hen’s legs in my front room (see pantry picture under and should you can spot it).