A Nu Studio
We've been in our new place for over 1 year and it has been great! We previously rented a roach-infested 1 bd/1 ba plus a study. It started out decent for a first apartment for us as newly weds, but it quickly became one of my greatest sources of discomfort. To make a gross story short, we couldn't escape those little buggers. They were in the cupboards, drawers, ceiling, and even the dishwasher. Cheap rent and being broke can almost make you live in anything. But 2 years and no real help from the apartment complex was much too much. Thankfully, we had a rental "glow up" in the best sense possible. We moved into a cute little neighborhood where all of the houses are indistinguishable from one another (aside from exterior paint color). Just another couple on the block.
This new place crossed everything off our very short wishlist; including 3 bd, a backyard for the puppers, and obviously the most important being roach-free. As a person not keen to actual decorating versus virtually decorating, I vowed to create a space that is inviting and relaxing. If you think I am talking about a living room or perhaps a master bedroom, you are completely mistaken. I am referring to the sweetness of being a two-person couple with extra rooms. One of these rooms had been dedicated to a new studio before we even found the place. As a lazy creative person, I found it difficult to be motivated to work in my half studio half bedroom in our old place. I romanticized the idea of having a separate space and the new energy that would flow through me.
My ideal studio would have exposed white brick and a nice grey concrete floor perfect for colorful rug to pop. A concrete floor was not on the table, but the room had one wall that is perfect for a "feature" wall. In comes this ever increasingly infamous Nuwallpaper. Arguably, the most popular pattern from this brand, but delivers so little in execution. Peel-n-Stick was definitely accurate instructions, but maybe not so much in description. It should be more like "Peel-and-Stick-Shrink-Peel-and-Stick-Again-Shrink-Even-More". I probably don't need to get into too many details because the new name describes it all. On the 5-star side of it, the wall paper was very easy to put up. The hardest part for me was making sure the pattern matched perfectly, which meant cutting sections off so it would line up on the wall. Yes, waste. I purchased 3 rolls from Amazon with the generous help of a gift card, and quickly realized that it would not be enough. One roll completed two columns on the wall, but I'm sure it would been enough if I hadn't tried to match the pattern.
Here you can see the length of one column.
Flash forward to completed the rolls, thinking about buying another roll for one more column, and one month later I find myself looking at the growing gaps between the columns. In denial about having to redo this s*** again, including recutting squares to fit around the outlets, more time passes. Finally, after about a month and a half, I figure the gaps won't get any bigger and I redo all of it and decide to overlap the panels by almost 1/2 in. Gaps formed again but more likely due to uneven placement rather than uneven shrinking. The gaps presented themselves in a different way this time. With some parts of panels separating and other parts on the same panel being okay. So, now I found myself again with the possibility of having to redo the wall again, but this time I thought I would overlap each panel by 1-inch. Cue more time passing and insert a laziness factor, more weeks passed by and nothing had been done to fix the wallpaper. On top of that, the panels started falling off at the top and then sticking to eachother.
After weeks of putting the wallpaper back and having it fall over and over again, I decided that I was done with it and ripped it all out. Now, I'm back to brown walls with an added sticky residue factor. I've decided to just paint the walls instead. Stay stuned for more updates!
WHHHYYYYYY
It's embarrassing how long it took me to tear all of this down. So there, in sadness, hung...my ideal faux feature wall