Fabric Wallpaper (Is Better Than Sliced Bread)

 That door was kind of like having an enormous dog turd hanging out in the corner of your bedroom. It had to go.

I used the impeccable tutorial from How About Orange, but since my cooking skills are such that I literally cannot boil water unless I’m using an electric jug, I had trouble with the paste-making aspect. I stirred and stirred and boiled and stirred and boiled some more, but it just wouldn’t thicken. After three sing-throughs of the fire-burn-and-cauldron-bubble song, I got bored and took it off the heat, and within a couple of minutes it was as thick as Homer Simpson. It was also lumpier than the three-week old milk I found in the fridge the other day, but that was fine – as you smooth down the fabric, the lumps squish away.

I didn’t brush the paste on the entire door before I started since it does dry and I work slower than an arthritic tortoise, but it is easy to add more, and you definitely won’t be short of it. I kept the excess in the fridge for the next couple of days in case any touch-ups were needed, but it stuck on perfectly. I don’t trust my measuring skills, so I cut the fabric slightly bigger than necessary. Once it was glued I cut off the excess by running a razor blade along the edge, which ensured it was a perfect fit. 

In a tragic turn of events, it poured like the apocalypse was coming a few weeks ago, and the moisture soaked up the first twenty centimetres of the material at the bottom of the door, leaving an unsightly stain. My suggestions are:

1. Don’t do it on an outside door.

2. If you do it on an outside door, cut the edge off along the bottom of the door, don’t tuck it underneath flat against the floor.

I loved it so much that the first night, I went to bed with my light on so I could look at it until I fell asleep, power bill be damned. In fact, I loved it so much that I repeated it with the paint-scratched rusting laundry cupboard as a well-it-can’t-get-any-worse experiment. It sticks just as well on metal as it does on wood.