
So hello! First post and all that so please be gentle!
Going to chat today about wallpapering your floor, yep that’s right I said wallpapering your floor!
I am in a facebook group and wow the amount of feedback and queries I have had on this subject was great so I decided to kick off my first post telling you all about it.
So here’s a few pics to give you a visual aid.
Pic 1 – yep pretty crappy floor there, it was just a cheap laminated floor, nothing special, it wasn’t really kept well, lots of marks and paint stains …. hey don’t judge my housekeeping skills.
Pic 2 – This was the final result. I love love it! So clean and bright looking, it totally transformed the whole room. This room is now my craft/office/hiding space. Yes it’s my space, no kids, no husband allowed!
So here’s how I did it.
Gather your supplies
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Wallpaper of your choice.
I got mine in my local store, nothing fancy about it, just really liked the pattern. Also spotted it in B&Q. It was called distressed wood. I used 3 rolls and had some left over. -
PVA
I used Contractors Grade PVA adhesive and sealer. It came in a 1litre bottle. I mixed it with some water before I applied it to the floor. This bottle was enough for my whole floor. You can get this in your local store. -
Knife
I used this to cut the wallpaper if it was needed at any angles or any funny corners that needed trimming. -
Paste Brush
I used this brush to apply to PVA to the floor. It’s a wallpaper one but you could use any brush really. -
Wallpaper Brush
This was used to smooth out the wrinkles and any kinks when laying down the wallpaper. -
Varnish
I used polyurethane floor varnish. This was a water based varnish in clear satin, not a fan of gloss. Extremely tough & hard wearing so it says on the tin! This is what I wanted, plus its non-yellowing. -
Roller/Brush & Tray
I used the roller to apply the varnish but I also used the brush, kinda went between them. I felt with the brush it was soaking in more and I was able to get into corners and angles.
Here’s a nice picture of the supplies!
Next up, my method so here goes
- Prepare your floor, I just washed it down and hoovered it, made sure there was nothing sticking to floor, no dirty sticky bits.
- When the floor is ready, measure up your wallpaper. I just got himself to hold wallpaper down the length of the floor and cut across. Nothing fancy, no measuring tools used here, we winged it!
- Now you apply the PVA to the floor and spread it out, then lay your wallpaper down. Make sure wallpaper is lying flat, no bubbles, no kinks. I had help with this process. Got himself to hold the wallpaper while I spread the glue and smoothed it out. Ok Ok he was on the floor doing the grunt work while I issued instructions from above. Sure I had to hold the paper straight! We did this in stages going down the length of floor.
- At the edges you can cut and smooth any bits level to you skirting boards.
- When the floor was all covered with the wallpaper, I left it to dry overnight.
- Final process! Get your varnish out and lather it on. On the first coat it just soaked into the paper. I let this coat dry completely. I did 6 coats of varnish in total, making sure each coat was dry before I did the next coat
- That’s it! Move your furniture back, sit back & admire your handy work!
It’s been a couple of weeks since I did this and so far so good. No tears, no bubbles. I have some heavy bits of furniture in that room and I was wondering if they would tear the paper when moving back, but no everything held.
So in a nutshell, result! This project didn’t cost me a lot, and took the guts of a week. It was a pain in the backside moving all the furniture out and back in again though
I am wondering will it last long term. So maybe in a couple of months i’ll post back with a follow up. What you think?
Costs involved
Wallpaper : I used 3 rolls @ €24 each
PVA : 1Litre bottle @ €6.75
Varnish: 2Litre tin @€33
Here’s more pictures of the finished result.
If you have any comments or if you did something like this, please do comment and tell me. Thanks for reading !