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
Liquid starch can hold up fabric for a temporary wall covering. This is a page about temporary wallpaper for renters.
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 to use liquid starch to cover your walls with fabric? We live in a mobile home.
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
This is from an article I found on the web:
I started to look for temporary projects that were quick, and simple and I came across one that I think will be fun and make a big difference: Using fabric as temporary wallpaper.
I wanted an accent wall in the bedroom. I found a how-to article, "The Quick Fix Fabric on Walls" at RentalDecorating.com. I'd like to know if anyone has tried this technique and if the results were successful.
When you need to remove the fabric, it peels off the wall - no harm done
The instructions are simple: Wash the wall, then use push pins to fasten fabric along the wall's top edge. Apply fabric starch to the wall (with a paint roller or from a spray can), starting at the top and smoothing the hanging fabric over it until you reach the floor. Hang another panel, matching the pattern and repeat the starch and fabric application down the wall. After the wall is covered, you trim the fabric.
You don't have to do an entire wall, either. You can cover any portion of a wall, or just a section and "frame" it with fancy trim.
I picked out my fabric, a giant silk floral with a pretty sheen (a white bed headboard and a bookcase will go against the wall, so that will cut the print's impact). I pinned it up in the living room in two panels, just to get practice matching the panels. I lucked out in that the 2 2/3 yards I needed for each piece came within a few inches of the pattern repeat.
Test run with laundry starch
I tried several craft and home supply stores, but couldn't find fabric starch. So I went to the grocery store and got a spray can of Niagara starch - and it worked!
I washed a section of wall, then sprayed it with the Niagara starch. I used a piece of fabric left over from lining a bag - it's about the same weight and texture as the silk. The next morning, it was still there. No bubbles or peeling and even the tiny frayed threads were still splayed out on the wall.
When I peeled it off, it came away from the wall easily. I think that you could even wash and use fabric from this project in something else later. I am going to keep looking for a plastic-based starch before I complete this project in earnest - I am concerned that a corn-based starch could draw insects. The Niagara Starch didn't list ingredients on the label, and I haven't found it online yet either.
FROM ME: Since the fabric is heavy, you might want to also tack it up at the corners with some really small nails that you could maybe touch a dab of paint over the heads of the nails to hide them. I saw on another site, someone also tacked it up with small painted boards (like molding) and they liked the results.
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.
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.
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.
You should be able to do that provided that you use fabric paint.
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?
I have never tried this but when searching I could not find anything that mentioned what weight fabric to use or not use so it seems that it would be okay. You can search Google and find many suggestions as well as YouTube videos on how to do this.
www.hgtv.com/
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 think it would hurt the paneling.
This is a great way to cover up blah walls. I did this on a painted wall and removed it when I sold my house. the faberic starch stays in the fabric and not on the wall, when you remove the fabric it will be stiff from all of the starch. Just wash and use again. Starch is not a glue so your corners might peel away, just reapply more starch.
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
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.
