my mint green house: don't be jealous, but my ceiling is cooler than yours

See? I don't lie.

I'm so excited that this project was able to be done. My friend, Shelly, volunteered to help me paper my powder room ceiling and I was super excited. The paper was waiting for me when I got home from work on Wednesday so Shelly and I made plans to get started right after lunch today. Fab.

But then I was clearing off the top of the dryer and realized that getting to that far corner would be difficult. Hmmm - how much room is left when I wiggle it all the way next to the toilet?

Yeah, not that much. But the washer/dryer seems pretty sturdy, maybe we could climb on top? Shelly was game and also said that she had a skinny 2-step ladder that might work. So I headed over to Home Depot to pick up supplies.

Note: wallpaper was bought through Will's Decorating, not HD

Shelly arrived and we cut strips of paper. Originally we thought that we would only need three strips, but then we overlapped the edges pretty significantly to be able to match the pattern so ended up needing a fourth piece. And each piece needed to be extra long as well. Even so, I ended up with plenty of leftover paper so look for that in future projects!

I decided to hang it widthwise because the room is a bit of a rectangle. This should help widen the room a little and make it seem like more of a square.

Shelly came up with an ingenious plan for fitting into that sliver of space between the washer and the wall - put the step stool on the "thin" setting and then prop it up with a couple of books. Maybe not the sturdiest thing in the world, but as she said, just as sturdy as climbing on top. And it was jammed in between the wall and the very heavy washer/dryer combo. Well, it worked and that's all that matters!

So Shelly squeezed in the tiny space on the left and then I perched on a one-step stool on the other side of the toilet and we got the first piece up, Shelly cutting around the light/fan thingamajig. That sucker was tricky.

Then it was on to the second strip. Lining this one up wasn't hard, but there were just a ton of wrinkles and bubbles. Here's Shelly trimming the second strip. Did I mention that she basically did everything? I smoothed a bit and that was okay, but I just couldn't get the hang of trimming. I kept scoring the wall and not getting any of the paper. Shelly rocked at it. She also lined up each new piece PERFECTLY with the previous one. You can see the seams a bit where the paper is solid, but it's wallpaper. It has seams. Blow up any of these pictures and you would not be able to find the seam.
My very-important job was to keep the supply of clean rags coming, to hand off tools and to clean up the excess glue on the ceiling and walls. I was also pretty good at prepping the paper - pasting and booking. But the queen of the day was definitely Shelly.

The third piece, though, almost made Shelly give up. Lining it up was nearly impossible and then when letting the paste set, we got distracted by the internet and so it wouldn't stick to the ceiling. Then wrinkles and more wrinkles followed by bubbles and more bubbles. Getting rid of one just caused another. More paste and some deep breaths helped all around and then it was time for trimming!

The fourth piece was easier because we cut it nearly in half lengthwise before putting the paste on. We knew we'd only need about a foot instead of the full 27" and it also made it easier to manage.

And then, about 4 hours later, we were done! I love it so much - I keep going back in to check it out.