12x12 pads of paper (I needed 2)
Adhesive (Modge Podge, glue dots, spray adhesive, etc)
Foam brush
Level
Ruler
Pencil
When we moved into the new place, I really wanted to give each of the kids a nice bedroom. The entire house had to be painted so I chose a nice warm gray colour, but left one wall in each bedroom white, as I wanted to do an accent wall in each. I didn't really have a vision of what I wanted to do in Jackson's room. I knew I didn't really want it to be too "theme-y" as a) I wanted it to be able to transition over the years as he grew without having to change a lot of things in the room and b) he really loves anything "boy" (i.e. cars, trucks, planes, construction, dinosaurs, robots etc. etc.) so it would be hard to pick just one theme. With a somewhat basic colour scheme, I feel I am able to accent the room with the things he loves, in art work and knick knacks, and mix it up without it looking too cluttered.
Anyway, I had toyed with the idea of putting up a wall of wood planks which were painted/stained different colours, but decided against it. It would be a bit pricey and I do not own the tools required for the project (saw, etc) and didn't want to have to depend on someone else to come and help me with it. I happened to be in Michael's earlier in the week and stumbled upon some scrapbooking pads of paper which were 70% off. You know me, I can't turn down a good bargain, so I knew I had to buy the paper, but for what? I had the thought of sticking it on the wall. My sister in law had painted a wall in their daughter's nursery in a square/grid pattern which I always really loved. Having just spent hours upon hours painting the accent wall in Avery's room, I knew I didn't want to get into another big paint project. I didn't want to have to measure and tape out all of the squares, etc. This paper was already cut into 12x12" squares, and was colour coordinated, it would be perfect. It retails for $29.99 a pad, but at 70% off it was $8.99 a pad. I bought 2.
This is what it looks like. The theme was "atlas". lots of the pages were either a plain colour, or had a minimal pattern to them. Some were maps, others had airplanes on them. I liked it.
I knew I couldn't just go randomly gluing the pages to the wall. I knew there would have to be a certain amount of space between the papers so it would look like a nice even grid. I knew this, but didn't know how to figure it out. Math and I have never been good buddies. This is when I contacted my friend who excels in math, gave her the dimensions of the wall, and the approximate amount of space I wanted between the pages, and asked her to figure out how many pages I would need, and the amount of space to leave between the pages.
The wall was 145.5" long by 92.5" tall. My grid was 11x7, with about an inch in between the squares. I started by making a level line at the top of the wall an inch down from the ceiling, and measured an inch in from each side of the wall to give myself a rough guideline as to where to place the papers. I would put one paper on, and measure an inch out from the top corner and bottom and put a pencil mark, and then place the next and do the same thing. Once I had few rows done, I could eyeball it pretty good, and didn't have to measure anymore.
I took this picture yesterday. It was a very dreary day so there wasn't much light in the room so the colours aren't true to life. Anyway, you get the idea here. Oh, I used Modge Podge to adhere the papers to the wall. I don't know if I would use this again. I tried not to use a ton of it per page, but they started to lift up so I found I really had to use a lot on the back, and once it was on the wall, even go over the top of it at the corners with more (it dries clear). If I do this again I think I would use a different adhesive. Also I tried not to really make any pattern to the papers on the wall. Each pad had about 12+ different pages, with 4 or so of each. I wasn't totally random about it, basically I tried not to repeat a pattern in the same row or column or have them right next to each other anywhere on the wall.
This is a fairly fast process. I think I completed it in about 2 or 3 hours, over the course of two mornings. Today is a much nicer day so I was able to get better quality pictures of the finished wall.
Here's a picture of a portion of the wall, so you can see the patterns on the paper a bit better.
This was really quite a simple project to do, and inexpensive' total cost was under $30.
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