I love the punch that beautiful wallpaper can bring to a room. When we first moved into our house, many of the walls were covered in coordinating wallpapers of hunter green and burgundy. I could tell they had been meticulously chosen by the previous residents, and I appreciated the effort they put into their selections. It wasn’t quite to our taste, however, so I wound up spending hours removing the wallpaper… from everywhere.
I don’t mind wallpaper removal. It is a tedious job, but also satisfying. Peeling off piece by piece until finally a blank canvas remains.
To date, I have yet to put up any new wallpaper in the house, though I have wallpapered some of my furniture. That is sometimes a more convenient option. Not quite so permanent as wallpapering an entire wall or room.
When we were re-doing our kitchen, my husband and I had a lot of disagreement about the backsplash. My husband didn’t like any of the options I liked, and I didn’t really care for his. It was an oddly divisive issue. We finally just made our own out of plywood. While I like it, I’m not sure if it has reached its final form yet. Don’t tell my husband, though. He’s not ready for that idea. Not yet.
Anyway, once we brought our backsplash to its current state, we were left with a blank spot. A piece of wall around the doorway that leads to our mudroom/bonus room/laundry area. I like it when you look through a door and you can see the different spaces talking to each other. So, I painted that wall the dark grey color we had used in the mudroom space.
Then, I decided it needed something else. More color, more movement, more interest. I got out some of our other leftover paints: the kitchen cabinet colors, the blue from the bathroom, coral from the living room furniture. As I evaluated these paints, I wondered if I could mimic the look of wallpaper using those colors together. I referred to a design from Rifle Paper, Co as inspiration. I love a lot of their floral patterns and probably would have ordered their wallpaper if it had magically come in the exact colors I needed (https://riflepaperco.com/peacock-emerald-wallpaper-roll).
Next, I went to work. To start, I made a template from a piece of cardstock for the peacock. Then the rest I sketched in with a pencil to try to get a good balance to the design. Once I was happy with the sketch, I started to paint. I used one color at a time, letting it dry before moving on to the next color. I used small brushes for most of the design to try to be as precise as possible.
I really love the way it turned out. It’s not perfect, of course. However, it does nicely tie together colors from different spaces on the first floor. And it feels like a fun and cheerful corner of the kitchen.
Though I had my doubts in the beginning, sometimes you just have to dive in and see what happens. If you don’t like it, there’s always tomorrow, and another idea waiting to be dreamt up.
design + surrender 