Hi there! My name is Michelle and while a healthcare consultant by day, I am a fearless DIY-er and real estate investor by…. night? Honestly, anytime I have some free time. Each spring and fall I like to participate in a little big challenge called the One Room Challenge (ORC). The ORC Fall 2020 round will be my fourth (and by far most interesting) round – we will be tackling the SAME room we did in the spring, but turning it into a twin nursery.
The drama that surrounded that final reveal was documented over on my IG page, but the quick and dirty of it is this: I chose the wrong lumber for my murphy bed and it broke. Then I discovered I was expecting twins by way of an ER visit and triplet miscarriage. So, I hope you will join me for the next few weeks. This pregnant, exhausted mama needs all the encouragement she can get to pull off a TWIN NURSERY.
I came across this magnificent woodland wallpaper mural in my original search for less cutesy woodland nurseries. After immediately falling in love, I didn’t even need to keep looking! I just knew – this was the one.
I have never attempted to wallpaper anything, though, so this was uncharted territory. Plus, I’d be 23-24 weeks pregnant with twins up on a stepstool – sounded like a daunting task! As with anything new to me – I started with reading up on how to do it.
Prep Work
I read through the shop’s instructions and learned that temporary wallpaper (or any wallpaper) really doesn’t work on textured walls like mine (see below):
So, I would need to get rid of that texture somehow and the answer was skim coating. I’ve done this once before on my kitchen backsplash.
With this being a more labor intensive project than the fern mobiles from week three, it took a lot of my energy. So that meant I missed last week’s post because I had nothing to show! Oh well, c’est la vie.
But this week I kicked it into high gear and have GREAT THINGS to show you! First up, the skim coat and prime to prepare the walls for the temporary wallpaper I selected. This starts with some drywall joint compound and some simple painting supplies. Plus, a squeegee.
I added some water into the compound and mixed it up into a mayonnaise consistency so I could roll it on the wall a little easier. Once it was ready, I rolled it onto the wall and used my squeegee to make a few passes in opposite directions – vertical, horizontal, vertical again.
I do three layers of this process with a light sand in between, so the layers are pretty thin!
Skim Coating!
Yes – I definitely did this in my PJs.
Priming and Applying the Temporary Wallpaper
Once all of the skim coating was dry, I sanded it down, vacuumed the wall and then wiped it down with a slightly damp cloth. From there, I applied Kilz Primer to the wall so that the wallpaper would have something to stick onto.
Letting that dry fully, it was time to apply the wallpaper. I used an article from Better Homes and Gardens to help me with the application process. The wallpaper itself also comes with great instructions, so it’s easy to get started!
This is like mixing stickers and cling wrap!
I couldn’t take the headboard down, so I worked around it.
Outlets were also pretty easy to work around with the utility knife! Just make sure you have a new, sharp blade and you won’t have any problems.
Ultimately, we still have quite a bit left to do in the nursery and I wouldn’t expect my reveal anywhere close to next Wednesday/Thursday – but people, we are making it happen! One baby step at a time!
Hope to see you next week with some cool updates – or at least some sort of progress!
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