Wall Decals From Contact Paper

To this day I don’t know how the colour that I see in the tin turned out to be this! Even I, with my stylistically wide taste, could not figure out how to make this work. I’m sure that it will be in fashion again some day, but at this point I lie in bed staring at a huge 80’s disaster. To make matters worse, it was a colour I had chosen and it was painted by a contractor - so, no going back...

Fortunately I found some nice contact paper at my local Leroy-Merlin. If you cannot equate rose-gold with ‘nice’ you haven’t seen the motely selection generally available in all the other stores. Even the French DIY stores are more chique!

Anyhow, I traced oblong shapes on the back of the contact paper using a vintage platter and ruler as a stencil. I then cut out the shapes with a craft knife and scissors for the round parts.

Before I found the contact paper, I had traced the same shapes onto the wall with the idea of painting them but then realised they were going to look like giant grey wood lice!

The contact paper is quite easy to work with other than that it tends to curl and may make bubbles. It may be easier to have an assistant.

In the photo above you can see the pencil lines from my previous attempt. Getting rid of the pencil lines turned out to be the hardest part because an eraser doesn’t work well and whilst a wet scouring sponge does the job, it does take off a bit of the PVA paint.

Ensure that all the edges and corners are adhering nicely. Another problem with the shiny paper is that it shows up any imperfection on the wall.

An aggressive colour like this requires a counter to stand up to it. Luckily I had a mid-century chair in a punchy cerise velvet and an equally punchy lamp to match. And a bit of greenery to reinforce the tropical theme and calm everything down.

Believe it or not, we are actually sleeping better.