Seeing Red!

My parents were in town visiting last weekend and guess what we did... wallpapered! At first I was thinking we could visit the new California Academy of Sciences, hike around the Marin Headlands, or head up to Sonoma for the day. But then, I thought to myself, why would they want to do any of those things, when they could wallpaper instead?

Since first seeing the red fairy flower pattern, I've been obsessed with it. As much as I love the Kingflower and have a great sentimental attachment to it as it was my first experience with wallpaper (and will forever be grateful to Kurt and Todd for helping me hang it!), I wanted to tone down the baroque aesthic I had going on in my living room.

I also wanted to connect the living room more with the dining room (which I recently turned in to an office after having accepted wholeheartedly that I'll be working at home for the forseeable future - hooray!). I thought bringing out the red chair in the corner with a red accent wall was just the trick.

So, unfortunately, I sold the project to my dad as a one hour(ish) job. Which wasn't a lie, just optimism of an extreme nature. Initially, we were just going to wallpaper over the kingflower, but after we applied paste to it, it started air bubbling. I think this might have been due to the old paper not having completely adhered to the wall in the initial wallpaper job. Lesson learned is that wallpapering over wallpaper doesn't always work.

Luckily, I also learned how easy it is to strip down wallpaper. We just used this little wallpaper roller thing that puts a ton of perforations in the paper. Then we sprayed a wallpaper removing solution on the paper, let it soak in for 15 mins and scraped it off. I have to say that it was extraordinarily satisfying to remove. Fun might be pushing it... but satisfying? Yes. My dad agreed. The paint on the wall underneath wasn't damaged at all either, which I was glad to see (and will be happy to report to my lovely landlord...).

After removing the old paper, we took a break and hung the new wallpaper later that day. We all thought it turned out great!

And, I think it ties the two rooms together well. Not too little, not too much, just the right amount of red...


I used the scraps to add a little flourish to this cardboard birdhouse. It was super easy - I just cut out a rectangle of wallpaper, used adhesive spray to put it on the cardboard, and then used an exacto knife to cut around the cardboard pattern.

Why shouldn't birds get to enjoy some gorgeous, modern red wallpaper too, I figure...

Thank you, Dad, for all your help! And thank you, Mom, for helping me sort out my kitchen cabinets in the hopes that I will cook one day. Yikes, now that I'm thinking about it, I hope you two managed to have a little fun. After you've rested up at home, please come back. I promise I'll try to think of some activities that don't involve helping me get my apartment under control. Love you!