DIY Peeling Wallpaper Effect

12 March
I'm back to show you how I made the cool peeling wallpaper treatment on the door I put in my new retail space!

Here's the door in my space in case you missed it.

How to get an old, peeling wallpaper look

This was my inspiration.


Isn't it pretty? I think it was probably created as a photo prop. I created mine as an accent for my space.

Here's how I made mine. I had this plain old hollow core door that I took out of the bathroom off my bedroom.


Then I gathered up some vintage wallpaper that I had and some wallpaper paste left over from my vintage trailer project.

I covered one entire side of the door with this wallpaper as my base. You'll notice on the inspiration board they had a very small floral print as their base paper. I just used what I had... and I had, and still have, a LOT of this pattern!


I let that dry over night and the next day I took a razor blade and made a tiny little slit at an angle in the paper. My goal was to just cut through the very top layer of paper and as I peeled the paper I wanted to leave the backing on the door. It worked!

I don't know why I was so surprised, I mean every time I have tried to remove wallpaper from anything the backing never wants to come off!


So I did this here and there on the door and peeled some pieces off completely and just let some of them roll up and hang there like they did in the inspiration photo.


Here are some more of the papers I used. The one with the writing is antique player piano roll!


So I tore some smaller pieces of the other papers and just started layering them over the top of my base paper using the wallpaper paste as my adhesive.

You can see how it bubbles and wrinkles... I used a plastic paint scraper to smooth out the paper as much as I could. Don't pay too much attention to the wrinkling though because it will smooth itself out quite a bit on it's own too as it dries.


You can see my progress here... see the rolling torn pieces here and there? :o]


Here it is all finished! I left some hanging over the top like they did in the inspiration photo too. I think it really looks like old peeling wallpaper don't you?.........well.......... I guess it IS old peeling wallpaper! ;o)

Maybe I should say it looks natural instead of staged!


I painted the sides and the back of the door white... mostly for my booth neighbor... I didn't think it was too nice to make my side all pretty and then stick her with an ugly hollow core door!


What do you think?


These are my favorite pieces with the writing on the selvage.




Do you think you would try this on anything?


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  1. I think your door looks really cute Tania! Such a great idea too! :) Julie

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  2. So shabby chic! I can't think of anything I could do this on, but if I had a shop or a booth like you or if ok was a photographer, then I would! It's very pretty. It would make a beautiful background for a little girls photos. Have a great day Tania! It's my Friday so I know I will!

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  3. It looks like a wallpapering project gone horribly wrong!!! And I LOVE it! It's sooo cute and is the perfect accent in the antique booth.

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  4. That turned out fab! I'm sorry to say that the wall paper in my bedroom at the lakehouse resembled that a lot when we tried to remove it. LOL!

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  5. You took that inspiration and made a sweet piece for your shop. It is the perfect accent! I like yours better.

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  6. Thanks Suzie! I had never seen anything like it before either but when I saw that inspiration picture I definitely wanted to try it!

    Tania

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  7. Tania, this is so enchanting. I have a photography book of old European rooms and this is what they look like. I would love for my bedroom to have a peeling wall treatment. Where did you find the vintage wall paper?

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  8. This is really beautiful! I've never seen anything like this outside of old building so it's really neat that you can recreate the look. I've been a vendor for a few years now and can only imagine how excited your customers are going to be when they shop your space. Just popping over from the Something to Talk About Link Party. Hope you're having a great week! CoCo

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    Replies
    1. Thanks so much CoCo! It was fun to try and recreate the look and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

      Tania

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