Wednesday 18 July 2012

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.



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