To update the tired look to any room in your house, use material instead of wallpaper. Using material eliminates the mess wallpaper can make, both putting it up and taking it down. Material can be taken down to wash when dirty and goes back up virtually with a smoothing of the hand.
To apply any material, use plain liquid starch. Apply the starch either with a spray bottle, or brush. Once dried, the starch is crystal clear and no special product is needed for removal. Once the material is taken down, no sign is left that it has ever been used. The tools needed for this application are a pair of scissors, a brush or empty spray bottle, and of course, your hands.
I will never again pay the high price for wallpaper which is difficult to hang, and even more difficult to remove. Easy and fast.
Source: My father, Donald C. Case
By Spacecase from California
If you want a unique wallpaper, but easily removable, try stenciling the least expensive muslin fabric (I found mine for 86 cents a yard at major department store). Make sure to use fabric medium when stenciling. Then put up the fabric with laundry starch. The upside is that when you decide not to use the fabric for wallpaper any more, you can make curtains and other home decor out of it. By Debbie Z
How do I clean the years of finger prints off fabric wallpaper without damaging the fibers and color? The fabric is a multi textured silk - varied shades of green?
try using the foam rug cleaner and a sponge. Try a small section and see how it works out.
I have wallpaper that I spent a fortune for, and for re-sale, would like to keep. My teenage daughter wants to paint over it with black paint. I just read how a couple of coats of primer would cover up the wallpaper, then the black, but a friend said there's some way that you can put black fabric, like curtains, throughout the room, using rods or some other way of holding them up.
A better idea might be to hang the black fabric like wallpaper. What you would need is liquid starch. Soak the fabric in it an then smooth it over the wall like wall paper. When you want to remove it, the fabric will come off easily and you just need to wash the residue from the starch off the walls.
To hang like curtains, look for those tracks and rings that they have in hospital ER's. you can hang the tracks from the ceiling and pull the "curtain" across the wall. It's great if you want to divide a room (i.e. office/guest room)
If you install curtain rods around the room by the ceiling and another one down around the baseboard. Put a pocket in the top and bottom of the black fabric.
Of course you can hang things on curtains. If it is a poster or other paper items, you can use straight pins.
Black sheets would be less exspensive than fabric
A staple gun (w/ the fabric) would be quick, easy, and a snap to remove again.
As I did myself to cover a couple of ugly walls in an apartment, I used a sheet that I liked the pattern on. Have a bowl of spray starch and a sponge. I washed down sections of the wall with the starch, pressed the fabric to the wall, and sponged the fabric with starch. do this over the entire area to cover.
If you want to keep the wallpaper as is, I think you should go with the curtain idea. If you use a staple gun, you will have holes in the wall, which will not be good for resale value, as they will have to be repaired.
On the decorating shows, they paint over wallpaper all the time, but I personally think that it looks tacky, and I would not be happy if I knew that was done in a house I was buying. I imagine that it is very difficult to remove wallpaper that has been painted over.
To hang a picture on the wall that has drapes over it, all you would have to do is make a small hole in the drape where the nail in the wall is. If you daughter wants to hang lots of posters and decorate with CD s and whatnot, and has her heart set on this black decor, perhaps it would be wise to remove the wallpaper and paint as usual. It would not be that difficult to repaint the room when it was time to sell-- make the deal that she can do what she likes with theroom provided that it is back to neutral when it is time to sell. Fresh interior paint in trendy colors is a big seller for homes on all the TV shows. Wallpaper might have limited appeal, no matter how nice you think it is.
Agree with all except for starching fabric to the wallpaper. Even though starch is mild, over time and depending on the wallpaper itself, could damage the wallpaper permanently.
A huge NO painting the walls black! Not only will this ruin your nice existing wallpaper but will take coats and coats of primer and paint to cover over it so the black won't be bleeding through!
PS Yes, do keep re-sale under consideration! And your daughters taste may change in just six months ;-)
if you have fabric that you want to use...kinda hold it up there and paint the fabric with Elmers glue and stick it to the wall..might need a few tacks to hold it until dry...when she is tired of it spritz it with water and it comes right off...then wash off the rest of the glue and presto you have your wall paper back penny
First, do not ever, ever, ever paint wallpaper. The results never look right and it's aweful to try and remove later.
We encountered a similar problem of wanting to cover up walls and found a cool system at IKEA.
It's called Dignitet Curtain Wire. It has a small bracket on each end that can be mounted to the wall or ceiling with an adjustable length of wire in between. They have inexpensive little clips that you can use to hook the fabric to the wire, or you can make a fold in the top like traditional curtains. Check it out on line. You may be able to find a similar item at a store that sells curtains.
Does anyone know how to use liquid starch to cover your walls with fabric? We live in a mobile home.
I need to make starch for soaking my strips of material in before applying to the wall as a border. Has someone done this before?
By Anne Thomas
I did my sister's bathroom in fabric, and all I did was get fabric adhesive from Michael's (or any craft supply store). With the room ventilated, you spray on a small amount, then put on the fabric, using a squeegee to keep out the wrinkles. If the room is going to get a lot of moisture, you may want to put on some Scotch Gard. Good luck!
Will laundry starch hurt wood paneling if you use it to put fabric over the expensive good quality of wood paneling? I do not wish to cut and take it down. The spouse would die before painting it. Fabric covering over 2/3 of wall with chair rail finishing molding would be the solution for faux wainscoting. Light fabric could brighten depressing all over house with brown walls.
By Sherry from OK
I have textured/bumpy walls. Will I be able to hang semi-heavy weight fabric (gabardine) on my walls with liquid starch like wallpaper?
Does anyone know how I can hang embossed vinyl fabric on a wall like wallpaper? It's 54 inches wide and pretty heavy when you're dealing with a 9 foot length.
By Julie
I want to use liquid starch to put fabric on a wall. I want to use glitter/sequin fabric though. Would it work or would it be too heavy?
Liquid starch can hold up fabric for a temporary wall covering. This is a page about temporary wallpaper for renters.
Can I stencil a design or paint after attaching the fabric to the wall with the starch? I have a lot of white fabric and want a design.
