The Day I Broke Up With Peel-and-Stick Wallpaper
Recently, early one Saturday morning, I finally broke up with the peel-and-stick wallpaper in my bedroom.
Not because I hated the pattern.
And not because I wanted a different look.
Because I got tired of walking into my bedroom wondering if today’s the day my fickle accent wall would completely detach itself and introduce itself to the floor.
And it did!
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I wanted a feature wall
Like every great DIY relationship, it started with excitement.
I chose to use temporary wallpaper over traditional wallpaper because it was an easy way to create a feature wall. Ease of application was also a decision point.
The paper I selected was something new for me. I admired the colors, the flowering vines, and knew it would be beautiful as an accent wall behind the bed. Even better, the adjoining primary bathroom could be transformed with a feature wall of peel-and-stick wallpaper as well.
It started out so well. Each panel installed smoothly and easily.
The visual impact it had on the entire room was immediate, and I loved how beautiful it looked on the adjoining bathroom feature wall.
I told myself and others, “I should have done this sooner!”
Then…
A few weeks later, I noticed a wider seam between two panels. Then another one. I thought I was imagining it. Wallpaper doesn’t move – does it?
Except apparently…it does!
Every week, it seemed to move another eighth of an inch. The gaps got wider, while others bunched up together. Then the corners started to fold over. Every few days, I would press another corner back in place and hope it would stay this time.
At some point, I realized I was no longer admiring the wallpaper’s beauty, but looking for more cracks in the seams. I alone was carrying the weight of the relationship.
Certainly it wasn’t me? Had I installed it wrong? Were the painted walls underneath the paper the wrong surface?
As any good DIY detective does, I turned to Google and AI for answers.
After enough searching, I learned that peel-and-stick vinyl on exterior walls sometimes shifts due to temperature fluctuations and humidity. Same for bathroom walls. It moves, it shrinks in cold temps, and stretches in humid conditions. That explained the gaps, and the overlapping, puckered seams.
I read how-to-fix-the-problem articles saying I would need to remove each panel, then reinstall them with a credit card-sized gap between them so they could move freely with the temperature.
Would anyone ever do that?
Then I read a suggestion that made me laugh out loud.
“Use wallpaper paste to securely attach panels to the wall”.
I’m sorry. If I have to open a bucket of wallpaper paste, then we have officially left “peel-and-stick” territory.
I decided to find my own way to solve the problems with the wallpaper panels.
I should at least get an A for effort…
I tried rerolling over every seam. More than once. I kept a smoothing tool and seam roller in my bedside drawer. I would stand on the bed every few days just to press the seams down at the ceiling level.
When this no longer worked, I got clever and used small glue dots under the edges of the panels where it was peeling off the most. And it worked! For about two weeks. It was back to pressing down the edges again for a few weeks.
Then I decided to ignore it as best I could. No need to comment on that crazy idea.
The day came that I dreaded. A panel did indeed hit the floor, and I finally declared the relationship was over. It had only lasted eighteen months.
When my son came to visit and asked what happened to the wallpaper and why it was peeling off the walls and touching the floor, I told him I lost the battle to save it. I just hadn’t pulled it down and hauled the body away yet.
He is also a DIYer, so he got it.
This was not my first experience with removeable wallpaper
My first time installing peel-and-stick wallpaper was inside a bathroom walk-in closet for our Vintage Bathroom Makeover a few years ago.
On the back wall of this double-door closet, I installed a bold print of black, white, and gray hexagons. This patterned wallpaper was not easy to install, but I love the unexpected pattern inside the closet. It has been up for over two years without a single problem so far.
Which is why I struggle to understand why this time it didn’t work out as well.
Your home should be the antidote to stress, not the cause of it. – Peter Walsh
Decorating our homes is always a little bit of an experiment.
Some projects become favorites.
Others become funny stories we tell later.
This one definitely belongs in the second category.
In all seriousness, I don’t hate peel-and-stick wallpaper after this experience. I still think it is a good product and it has its place. I just don’t think the walls in my primary bedroom and bathroom are that place.
Lessons learned…
Through this experience with self-adhesive wallpaper, we learned that it is important to consider the effects of temperature and humidity of exterior walls versus interior walls. And to know what type of surface paint you are installing the panel on.
Removing the peel-and-stick wallpaper on these old painted walls actually damaged them in a few places. We experienced a similar problem last year while renovating the guest room across the hall. In that room, after struggling to repair a small hole in the wall, we determined that a previous coat of paint underneath the top surface may have been oil-based or the wrong primer paint. We ended up having to peel off the top layer of paint like wallpaper in that room. Weird, I know.
Renovating an older home is always an adventure!
Now that I am back to plain white walls again, it is like a breath of fresh air in the room. I can relax again. Next year, I am looking forward to planning the next design phase for this bedroom.
Hugs,
Proverbs 19:21 Many plans are in a person’s heart, but the Lord’s decrees will prevail.
