Let me show you how to add interest to plain wall paper. Not many people like to remove old wall paper when doing home-improvement. They’re afraid of what they may find under it, as crumbling and cracked walls can be disguised with the cunning use of wall paper. We removed all the wall paper in our old house (each square inch was covered with paper). We were lucky with some rooms, and not so lucky with others. This article will show you how I added interest to plain wall paper on the sole wall in the house which remained papered.
The walls in bedroom 1 was particularly bad, so after removing the paper off 3 of the walls, I was wary of tackling the window wall. I decided to leave the wall paper on and do something interesting with it. It was originally plain magnolia (see picture below).
How you can add interest to plain wall paper
The old wallpaper had some faint indentations that followed a line. I merely used a small brush and painted within these lines. I used 2 alternating colours – the very ones I bought for the rest of the bedroom walls. I then covered the entire area with one layer of clear varnish to keep the hard work intact. The original wall-paper was drab and frankly, depressing to anyone who slept in the room. The easy option was to just paint the paper one flat colour, but there was a more royal alternative.
This may take some time to do, but the end result is tremendous. The wall paper looks and feels expensive and adds a touch to the room a simple can of paint could not achieve. Note that the paint used was just ordinary emulsion – the same colours I used on the other walls. More close-up pictures below. Notice the shiny, smooth quality the varnish has given the paper.
Now you too can add interest to your plain wall-paper. This is the only wall we have left papered. The effect is marvellous and adds a significant amount of glamour to the room. The varnish also reflects the light, so this is an added bonus. If you want to check out what we did to the rest of the house, go to our extreme home makeover page. If wall paper is not your thing, check out our paint vs wallpaper article.
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Simple but very effective, just let you imagination run wild and turn that boring wallpaper into something unique.
Beautiful… thank you for sharing, i will apply this at my empty walls.
Great post.