Wallpaper Accent Wall with Photowall & Discount Code

This post may contain affiliate links. This means I may receive a commission if you click on a link, or make a purchase using the links in this post. All opinions are my own.

This post was sponsored by Photowall. All opinions are my own.

If you check out my Pinterest, you’ll see beautiful rooms that I want to use as inspiration in our home. And a lot of them have wallpaper.

I have always loved a beautiful papered accent wall and have been dreaming about having one in our guest bedroom forever, but I’ve also been afraid to pull the trigger. I have grown up hearing horror stories of wallpaper gone wrong. When I saw this beautiful wave wallpaper from Photowall I knew I had to put fears aside and just go for it.

If you’re a long-story short kind of person, I am so glad I did! I love the results. You should do it in your own house too! The end.

Now, for the people who like long stories and want tips and tricks for installing your own wallpaper accent wall read on. 

I watched the video that Photowall has on their site that shows a man easily installing wallpaper with the “help” of a young child. So I called over my mom, thanks mom, and put her to work. If this actor can do it certainly we can too!

As it turns out, hanging wallpaper is a little more challenging than the video let on. But only a little. By the end we were moving and grooving. The first three panels took twice as long as the final six! 

Let’s back up. Since I had never hung wallpaper, I didn’t have any of the necessary supplies for my wallpaper accent wall. So, with my order, I included a kit provided by Photowall that has most of the necessary items to hang your own wallpaper. I still needed a bucket for the wallpaper paste, something to stir the paste, and a sponge. Everything else was included in the kit!

Each purchase from Photowall is made to order, reducing waste. When you order, Photowall will ask for the exact measurements of your wall, and then you pay by the square foot of your design. This is fantastic for a couple reasons. The first being that you’re getting exactly what you need and your seams will all match. When I originally looked into doing wallpaper, other companies would give instructions on how to calculate how much extra wallpaper to order IF you wanted your seams to match. I’m sorry, IF?! Who exactly would NOT want their seams to match?

Secondly this means that you’re not paying for a whole extra roll of wallpaper for a tiny sliver you have left at the end of your wall. Another neat thing, because all purchases are made to order, you can choose how the wallpaper’s design is centered on the wall. With some designs this can make a huge difference and can eliminate parts from being cut off in the middle of a pattern.

While the company is located in Sweden I was shocked at how quickly my order was processed, printed, shipped and arrived at my doorstep. And, now it was go time!

I started off doing exactly what the video and instructions said, and I’ll be honest, I ran into some trouble. The instructions from Photowall say to put the glue directly on the wall, but I struggled with this method. It was difficult for me to get the pieces to hang straight, and after the first three panels, I was close to tears. I panicked! Had I messed up my whole house?! I did this project when the handsome hunk was out of town, and I wanted to show him I could do it. I would have been crushed if he came home and the house was torn apart with a half-finished project that I needed him to complete.

Not going to happen on my watch!

So, I took a step back, watched some YouTube videos, and discovered that a lot of the professionals put glue directly on the paper, not the wall.

Now, I have no idea why that would make any difference at all, but when I switched to this method my panels went up straighter and in a fraction of the time. It was a game changer! So, I would play around to see what works best for you. If I had been using that method from the beginning, it would have been a much smoother process. 

My biggest tip for hanging your own wallpaper would be to get the first panel perfect. Remember that I said I had a hard time getting the panels straight in the beginning? My very first panel was off by a fraction of an inch. In fact, it was so little I couldn’t even notice it at first. However, over the course of a whole wall, one panel being off by just a little compounds, and by the end of the wall I had a 1/4″ gap where the ceiling met the wallpaper.

Now, honestly, you can’t even tell standing back and looking at it. The wall behind the wallpaper matches the ceiling so it flows right into it. You would need to get up on a ladder and search for it to notice. But, if I was doing a whole room instead of an accent wall, that could have been a problem.

The end result, if I do say so myself, is stunning! I am obsessed. I didn’t think it was possible to love this room more, but I do! It looks like something straight off my Pinterest board. It also feels so much more like us. I switched out some of the art on the nightstands that Tom’s grandfather collected over his travels fishing in the Bahamas. The whole thing just fits us so well.

I loved the experience SO much, and the product from Photowall that I am now planning on wallpapering our master bathroom when we renovate as well.

I had such a great experience that the folks over at Photowall have put together a promocode for you! 

Use code: typicallyjane2020 and get 25% off your order through March 10th 2020!

Have you wallpapered before? Where would you put up wallpaper in your home?

Like this? Check out these DIY shiplap valances!