Have you ever worked with wallpaper before? Before this, we hadn't. We were inspired to take the leap once our favorite fabric source, Hawthorne Supply Co., launched a new peel-and-stick wallpaper product. This is not the same wallpaper from the 80s that I remember as I child. No, wallpaper is cool again. And it's easy. Hawthorne has ingeniously converted some of their most gorgeous fabric designs into wallpaper. We are so in love.
Just browse the wallpaper section of their site and you'll immediately start staring at those blank walls in your house and making mental plans.
I'm dying to share with what we chose! "Howl at the Moon" designed by ShopCabin for Hawthorne Supply Co. Isn't it gorgeous? Have you ever seen anything like it? It was instant love for us.
Are you curious as to how we came to this choice?
I bet you're also wondering where we decided to put it. It's not the most conventional choice, and I'm imagining your mental wheels are turning! Well, it just so happens that wolves are Scarlett's favorite animal. They have been since this little lovie was gifted to Scarlett when she was just 3 years old by my sister-in-law's mother. {Side note: You know how brutally honest 3 year olds can be? I held my breath as she opened her gift. Much to my surprise, she was in love and gasped with delight.} "Wolfie" has been her constant companion for the last 5 years, with her place being in the crook of my daughter's arm.
We also recently moved to a new house, and Scarlett requested a "wolf themed room". When she asked, I immediately thought in my head "oh no". Have you EVER seen wolf themed decoration that is cute? juvenile? and most importantly, not tacky? Do a quick google search and you'll see what I was up against. After no luck on Google or Amazon, I sat on it for a few days, mentally gave up, and then decided to poke around some of my favorite online shops to see if I could find inspiration to sway my very determined 8 year old.
I remembered Hawthorne Supply Co. had a new product, peel-and-stick wallpaper. I have always been in love with wallpaper, but hesitant to give it a try. But, this type seemed like a do-able option. I started browsing, and low and behold, they had WOLF WALLPAPER!!! What!!! Not only wolf wallpaper, but BEAUTIFUL WOLF WALLPAPER!!! I didn't even show Scarlett, because I knew it was perfect. I reached out to Hawthorne Supply to see if we could collaborate and they were game. {I jumped up and down when they said they thought it was a super cool idea!}
Here is the story board I put together and sent:
If you're a wallpaper newbie, like I was, you're probably wondering how you order it... just a couple big rolls? Actually, no! Hawthorne prints their own wallpaper, and their method for choosing the amount of rolls/ roll length is so smart.
You order the rolls according to the height of your wall. You want the wallpaper roll to be slightly longer than the wall. The wallpaper is 24.75" wide (the .75" is the overlap), so you'll know how many rolls you need based on how wide your wall is.
Within just a few days of ordering, our wallpaper arrived. I opened the package and immediately was struck with the superb quality of the linework and printing. I've felt different wallpapers before - and seeing their product made it quite apparent not all wallpaper is created equally. This wallpaper has a texture to it, a perfect weight. It's substantial, and feels durable. It doesn't feel flimsy or delicate. The composition of it definitely adds to the mental ease of starting the application process.
I've never installed any type of wallpaper before, so I'm not going to pretend that I wasn't intimidated once I opened the package. My ideas tend to be grandiose and sometimes above my skill level, ha! I read through the FAQs and "How to Install" instructions on Hawthorne Supply Co.'s website. Give it a read too. You'll probably be surprised at how easy it sounds. The apparent ease is not misleading at all- it actually IS JUST THAT EASY. No need to hire someone to come install it for you. YOU'VE GOT THIS!!
If you want to watch me actually installing it, head over to our instagram and check out our stories. Since stories disappear after 24 hours, I've created a saved story called "HSCo Wallpaper", so it can be referenced later.
Ease of application was a huge surprise for me. I literally read the instructions, inspected the wallpaper and then went for it. I had my husband video me, and I sound like I know what I'm talking about, like I have experience, but the truth is, I just read the easy and concise instructions included and then went for it, with no previous experience at all. Because it's peel-and-stick, it's so so so easy to adhere it and adjust as many times so you need to. It's sticky, but not too sticky. Enough to hold it to the wall, but not so much that you feel the slightest bit nervous to peel it and adjust as many times as you need.
I'm blown away that I was able to do it all by myself, and so fast. The whole project was less than 3 hours from start to finish, and that's with me stopping to take video tutorials. I bet it would have been 2 hours if I wasn't documenting it along the way.
The whole look came out better than I even imagined. Better than my storyboard. I also feel an extra bit of happiness that I was able to balance her desire for a themed room, and my desire for a pretty (non-tacky) room!
We used the wallpaper as the room color palette and inspiration for piecing together the rest of the room.
Aren't the colors in the wallpaper so beautiful? We first were drawn to this wallpaper based off of the wolf theme alone, but the serene colors really are so gorgeous. They won us over too. The duck blue, cream, white, light gray, dark gray, and tans/browns are so pretty together.
Look how pretty her antique cream headboard is with it.
While most all of her previous furniture worked well with it already; we ended up purchasing her a new dresser! This was actually already on the list to do since her previous dresser didn't quite work for her needs any longer. Being an antique sideboard, with doors instead of drawers, it wasn't the most practical for storage. This brown/gray dresser came from Wayfair. It was a little scary purchasing furniture online, without seeing it in person. I just made sure to measure the space carefully and I read all of the reviews. Thankfully several people posted in real life pictures in the reviews, so that was helpful. It ended up being just as described. It's a little on the larger scale side, but it's so well made, that it should last her well into her adult years.
Now, what to add above her dresser?! This made me scratch my head for a couple of days. Since I'd never installed wallpaper, I wasn't really sure what people typically do to hang pictures. Do you nail through the wall paper? That seems scary to do, because you can't patch it if you change your mind. It's a commitment, right?
I'm excited to share with you all that I successfully used Command Strips. They worked flawlessly! I've used them plenty of times before, but never on wallpaper. I wasn't sure if they'd stick, and especially if they'd stay. I'm excited to give you all the green light to use them! They work perfectly! And should we ever want to change things up, we'll be able to remove them, with no damage to the wallpaper beneath.
Above her previous dresser, she had a collage of cream frames of prints of illustrated children from Sarah Jane. It's been several years, so we decided to switch out the pictures with some family pictures we had taken a couple of years ago. The soft greens in the pictures makes for a nice little pop of color.
Her duck blue natural linen bedding is from SuperiorCustomLinens on Etsy. The duck blue tone of the bedding is perfect with the blues in the wallpaper. With such a busy wallpaper background, I figured a solid would bed would be a pretty accent and a nice balance. Superior Custom Linens offers customizable bedding, with most of their products being made to order. I ordered this bedding with an extra 2" drop on the sides so it would puddle at the ground. I am in love with the simple and feminine look of it. Her work is exquisite too. The workmanship is impeccable.
Want to see the other areas of her room? I thought I'd snap a few pictures in case anyone was curious. Across from the wallpapered accent wall with her bed and dresser is a wall with a window and her desk. Her little antique desk worked perfectly well as is, as it has a nice rich creamy tone.
This wall has a large window, so we took the cube shelving unit from her previous closet and turned it into a window seat. It also doubles as storage for books and baskets. I found the gray wood toned legs from Lowe's. They were so easy to install. Just a screwdriver needed!
Next came adding adding wall decorations. Scarlett saved up her own money and purchased this wolf picture from Hobby Lobby a while back, so it was a "must" to incorporate. On the same trip to Hobby Lobby, we also found a wooden moon. One of Scarlett's nicknames is "moon girl", so we painted it the color of her bedding, and decorated it with glitter.
Here are a couple last pictures of other corners of her room.
She has 3 cream storage bins at the end of her bed. Perfect for her stuffie/lovie collection.
We give our wallpaper experience a 100%. We will definitely be wallpapering more walls in our house. A gigantic THANK YOU from Scarlett to our friends at Hawthorne Supply Co. You've helped her bedroom dreams come true!
Just in case you all were wondering, Scarlett is wearing our Tatum knit dress in these pictures. It's cozy and a relaxed fit. She has several Tatum dresses and lives in them.
I'm so thrilled with how our project turned out and want to pass on the love!! Would you like to WIN a swatch of the wallpaper of your choice from Hawthorne Supply Co?
A "swatch" is 12" in length x 24" in width, so a great way to "try" out their wallpaper and see what all this awesomeness is!
Comment below your thoughts on this blog post and I'll choose 5 people to WIN a swatch of their choice.
xoxoxo,
Jessica
