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Hanging Spoonflower Water Activated Wallpaper

How many of you remember when I posted Avé’s room last fall, and I promised you tricks for hanging water activated Spoonflower wallpaper?  It remains my favorite space in the house, and I only hope I can somehow make baby girls room half has fun and beautiful.  When we were working on Avé’s room it was our first experience hanging wallpaper, and to be completely honest it was completely overwhelming at first.  Wallpaper is a huge investment and the last thing you want to do is mess up the first roll.  I am going to give you a step by step on this post on how we hung out wallpaper.  Spoonflower does have an AMAZING tutorial I will link to, so check that out also, but I hope this serves as a place for you to ask questions if needed!

This post is purely based on my own opinion.  Post contains affiliate links. 
toddler girl room with pink and green wallpaper, pink rug, gold bed and pink gingham bedding  - tips for hanging Spoonflower water activated wallpaper

Tricks for Hanging Water Activated Spoonflower Wallpaper

Alright so lets start with the biggest thing. THIS IS A TWO PERSON JOB.  You aren’t going to be able to do this well alone, and its best done in one sitting.  (at least for one wall). The wallpaper starts to dry which can barely shift it, which is the reason for the single sitting being so important.   I wouldn’t say this was a huge time commitment for us, block out a couple of hours and you will be fine!

When you set out to hang the wallpaper have all your tools and gear ready, and move all furniture away from the wall with enough distance for you to work and bend in front of the wall. Having things set up, and giving each person a job to be organized will make this go so much smoother.

Tools Needed For Hanging Water Activated Spoonflower Wallaper

  • a long tarp, towels, or a table surface as long as your wall is tall.
  • A utility knife
  • Edging tool – something like a metal putty knife
  • Sponge or Paint roller
  • Clean water
  • Painters Tape
  • Step Stool or short ladder
wall with half hung Spoonflower wallpaper

Now Lets Start Hanging

First things first make sure your wall is CLEAN and DRY.  I took a wet cloth and just gently wiped down the whole wall to remove dust.

Next, Follow Spoonflowers protocol (or if you’re reading this and hanging another brand follow their brand to know where to start as far as with strips and top and bottom.  For me the pattern I was doing was fully repeating so I was able to start my wallpaper with any piece, and start in one corner of the room.

You will first lay your first piece of wallpaper out on whatever surface you have chosen.  This surface needs to be something you can wash or throw away because it will get glue on it.  For us we lined the hallway upstairs with beach towels.  I laid out the first strip out on the towel, then while my husband was holding the piece on one end I used a paint roller to roll it WELL with water.  One thing we learned after the first piece was that it is important that the edges are sufficiently wet, so we ended up doing that with a sponge.

Spoonflower wallpaper being hung

You will then fold (but not crease) and gently lay the wallpaper kind of folded in on itself.  (see image here). Let that sit for roughly 5 minutes.

Now you’re ready to hang.  Pick up the wallpaper still folded as it was, and gently unfold one half of the paper lining up to ceiling on the top. I was lucky and able line up to the corner as well, but that is not as important.  Keep things perfectly vertical and if you need to trim the corner later you can.  Once you have the top positioned this is when I started to differ from the Spoonflower site on how I felt it was easiest to hang the paper.

In order to really cut down on the bubbles I used a BARELY damp sponge and as I was slowly pushing it down and positioning the wallpaper moving down the wall I used the sponge over the top. I don’t know why this seemed to help, but for me it did.  I am not a professional so do this tactic at your own risk.

The first strip will take you the longest and be the most tedious.  once you have that one mastered, overlap the rows just like it says on the Spoonflower site.  Line them up as best you can, and repeat.  I didn’t ever find a need for painters tape, but I do know some people find that helpful for holding the top as you go. Repeat until the end.

Once I was done with all my rows I allowed the wallpaper to fully dry before I trimmed the corner and trim at the bottom.  I found if I used a flat edge like a metal putty knife or metal ruler, and ran the utility knife under it along the corner or trim it made it much easier not to go rogue with the knife!

Green and pink wallpaper behind white nightstand with swan hanging over

Take Aways

I wish I had realized that the wallpaper is more forgiving than I thought it would be when it dried.  It didn’t end up having any areas that I didn’t love.  I was so stressed about bubbles and lining it up and I just couldn’t get it perfect in a few spots, and as far as I can tell the bubbles all dried out, and the lining up didn’t end up mattering.

Overall we LOVE the way Avé’s room looks, and we are definitely looking at doing wallpaper again for baby girl.  I am definitely glad I already know these tricks for hanging water activated Spoonflower wallpaper if we head down that road again, so I can do it with a bit less fear next Time haha!

As I stated in the first paragraph, half of my point to this blog post was to give you a place to ask questions if you’re setting out to do this the first time.  So if you have questions please feel free to leave a comment and I will respond as quickly as possible.

Hanging spoonflower water activated wallpaper
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