I’ve been at it again. My love for beadboard wallpaper has not slowed down and I’ve finished up the masterbath water closet. Amazing what this stuff does to add architectural details to an otherwise bland and boring little space. I love the crisp whiteness against the blue walls. Instant appeal!
Here’s how it started.
All blue, but not all that exciting.
Withe the addition of chairrail and other molding, along with the beadboard wallpaper, much improvement don’t you think? I sure do!
Want to know how I did it all? Of course you do! This is one roll of my nifty beadboard wallpaper, that I now carry in my shop, so you can get your hands on it at the click of a button.
I hope you know that the Wall Doctor Graham Brown version is the very best type and the only one I would use. Some of the copycat versions are not at all the same. I saw one in person and it was really bad. This one looks like the real thing.
If you missed my earlier posts last year when I first discovered and started using this amazing stuff, click here to see the tutorial on my kitchen and bath cabinets. I added this on the ends and really took them up a notch.
And we had a beadboard wallpaper party, after many of my readers tried it out too. It’s been a hit now for going on a year, in case you haven’t heard about it before.
I decided to begin the chair rail right underneath the window trim that was already in place, so that set my line for the chair rail on either wall. I measured just under that, so I would have a line to stop the wallpaper and then have the chair rail cover it up. Much easier to put up the wallpaper and then put the chair rail molding right on top. So, I figured out how many sheets I would need to go all around this little space. 9 to be exact.
Here they all are cut and ready to go. I actually put these up one at a time with a lot of time in between. I would wet a piece, wait 5 minutes, put it on the wall, smooth it out and then go do something else. Next time I came in the room, I did another piece, until I made my way all around the room.
I didn’t worry too much about the bottom where it meets the tile wall baseboard. I had already figured out that I would add a simple small piece of molding there to cover that seam. That is one thing I’ve found in working with this paper. If you add molding around it, it totally looks like the real thing and I really think that’s one of the key secrets to making it look SO authentic.
All the pieces are in place now and waiting for the chair rail to be installed.
Here’s how I got behind the toilet. I can’t imagine having to put in real beadboard behind a toilet. It would not have worked in my case. I barely had room to slide this paper behind, much less a thick piece of real wood beadboard. So, you can see how time and cost effective this would be. Don’t get me wrong. I love the real thing too, but sometimes it’s just not practical. Here I just cut a slit in the paper to move it around the toilet line.
And here it is all smooth and in place.
I did slide it behind the toilet without much problem. This paper is thick and easy to handle.
Now it’s time to get busy on the chair rail. I opted to go ahead and paint my already primed chair rail with 2 coats of my trim paint, just to save the hassle of painting next to my blue wall paint. Didn’t want to have to deal with that.
Here’s where I added a small trim molding (again, this is the lightweight foam stuff that can be cut with scissors). I glued it in place with wood glue. Really any sort of glue should work. Don’t tape on top of your wallpaper though like I did. I did have a little bit of it that pulled up with the blue tape. No major damage, but be more careful than I did.
See how that cute little trim just finishes it off and sits nicely on top of my existing trim baseboard tile? It’s those small details that make the difference.
This is shoe molding, very small (about 1/2″ wide from Lowes) and it worked perfectly on top of my tile.
And again, here is is all finished and painted. I did one coat of my gloss trim paint on the wallpaper too. I definitely think you should always paint this wallpaper to further enhance it and make it look like the real thing. It’s made for painting!
I love how it adds so much more interest in here now.
Mitered the corners with my simple hand miter box. It’s never perfect, since houses are sometimes off square and this was no exception. I did have to add some caulking in here, but after painting, it looks pretty darn good.
Close-up of the small trim molding and the wallpaper. Once you paint over the wallpaper, the paint fills in the seams for the most part, so they are hardly noticeable.
Love, love, yes I’m in love! 🙂
Now, here’s one thing I’ll show you. Houses and walls are not always straight or plumb. I was having a hard time getting this molding to lay flat and had to hammer in a bunch of extra nails in the center of this board. I thought the board was warped and was about to commence with some major whining out loud! Grrrrrrr!
But then I figured out that it’s the wall that’s not straight! So, those are some of the hazards of doing projects in less-than-perfect houses. It can show up in the strangest ways. Now, if I was a perfectionist, this might bother me, but since I got over that a long time ago, I can live with a little wave in my chair rail. Oh, and I finally picked up a nail set, which made my life much easier. That’s to punch in those finish nails and then caulk fills in the holes.
Project Cost:
Beadboard Wallpaper – $25
Chair Rail from Lowes (real wood): $20 for two 8′ pieces
Small foam molding ( two 8′ pcs. from Lowes) – $5
Total: $50
Looking in the dirty mirror from outside the room. It’s SO gratifying to do a project like this. It was really a fast one and I got it done in no time.  The hubs thinks I’m still trying to cover up more of his blue, but I still say all that white just enhances that purdy blue! 🙂
Instant architectural detail, you gotta love that!
Added to Kimba’s DIY Day this week.
Happy Birthday to my sweet mama, who turns 82 today.
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Telling Tales of Dusk book giveaway winner is:
#38: Nancy from Nancy’s Cottage Treasures. Congrats! Email me your mailing address and I’ll have Terri send you a copy of the book.
I loved Nancy’s comment:
Growing up in south Arkansas, on a tomato farm, well…I had my share of tomato samwiches. 🙂 I love poetry and used to write long, rambling, obscure poems that my Mother thought were grand. I was just melodramatic, lol. I appreciate the opportunity to enter this give-away. What a lovely book to spend time with on the front porch this summer….remembering the olden days when my life was simpler and slower. Thanks!
I love it! That very same project is on my to-do list for my half-bath, just as soon as I remove the ostentatious wallpaper already in there. Also, I have to say anything which allows you to only have to paint the upper-half of your bathroom walls is *perfect*. I can tell you from personal experience that it’s no fun to remove a toilet tank just so you can paint behind it. 🙂 Beadboard wallpaper solves that problem in a stylish manner.
This looks so awesome! I think this technique would add a lot of charm to my bathroom that lives off my living room. It is dark green now and looks like a cave. 🙂
I LOVE IT! I might try this in my bath room. I am so glad I saw the wallpaper in your home….IT LOOKS SO REAL!
I love seeing all your creative uses for beadboard wallpaper. It looks so crisp in the bathroom now!
Gasp – I can’t believe it… I love, love, love the way your bathroom turned out!!!! That’s it, I have to get it!!!
🙂
ButterYum
I am so glad you posted this! I was thinking about putting it in my bathroom and I was wondering how durable it would be in a bathroom! I am definitely going to use the wallpaper instead of the real board! Hope you’re having a great Tuesday!
I don’t think this post could be any more timely! I was JUST talking to my husband this morning about some of our kitchen cabinets, and how we should use beadboard for some unsightly work that was done by the previous owner. This would work out PERFECTLY!! Thanks for the great post and tutorial!
A while back I discovered this wallpaper on your blog and have been in love ever since. We just used it in my husband’s small bathroom at a chair rail height of 5 feet with paint above. It looks fantastic! We used it because the walls have a few cosmetic problems and we weren’t ready for a total gut of the place. It hid all the bad and looks like a million bucks and everyone that sees it cannot believe it is wallpaper. Thanks again.
Oh, how lovely Rhoda ! You are the Queen of Beadboard Wallpaper – it looks striking against that blue. LOVE it !!!
xoxo
Kate
Rhoda,
It looks fantastic! Seriously, though – is there a room or place anywhere on planet Earth that *doesn’t* look better with a little bit of beadboard?!?!?!?! I’m a total addict – need to hold me back!
xoxo,
Lindsay
Another lovely beadboard wallpaper project from you… I NEED to get some of that stuff… I’ve got a list in my head where I’d love to put it. Thanks for the great directions too!
It lightens it up so much. It looks great!
Wow! That looks really great. I’ve been toying with the idea of putting beadboard in my kids bathroom. I’m going for a beachy theme there. I wanted to use the wood kind, but your wallpaper looks really great.
I do want to ask your opinion though. My kids get water all over when they take baths. They think it’s fun to stand up and then plop down in the water so naturally the floor, walls, rug – everything gets soaked. How well do you think the wallpaper would do as opposed to the wood?
Sarah, I really don’t want to make any claims about it with kids & water. But, when it’s painted in a gloss trim paint, it really does repel water from the small amount that has dripped on the ends of our bathroom cabinets. I would hate to tell you that it would work perfectly though & then have your kids destroy it. The good thing is, it’s not terribly expensive to do a small bathroom. I still had a good piece left from my roll that could have done another area, so it goes a long ways.
Thanks Rhoda! I was thinking that probably after painting it with semi-or high gloss paint it would probably do fine. I was mainly worried about it peeling around the baseboards since thats where most of the water goes. I figure it can’t do worse than the regular wood kind. I wish I would have know about this wallpaper over a year ago. We added beadboard to the inside of our kitchen cabinets and not only was it a complete pain in the butt. It doesn’t look quite the way I envisioned. This would have saved me (well technically, my husband) a lot of work.
Thanks again! 🙂
What a difference the beadboard wallpaper made in your water closet! It truly does look like the real thing…my head is spinning with the ideas in my head now! LOL! God bless you Rhoda…~Robyn
A great thrifty way to get the real look! The dark blue looks great with the white, always a great combination!
The Designer Insider
It looks wonderful and so realistic! I might have to try that.
Happy birthday to your mom!
Did you prime the blue before covering it with the paper? I have a dark green on my walls in the basement bathroom and was planning on priming it before putting this up. And after seeing your post today I’m planning on ordering some from your Open Sky and doing this very same thing in the bathroom. Love that this looks real yet it doesn’t require new baseboard or the room behind the toilet that the read beadboard would. Love this!
Brilliant Rhoda! What a stunning transformation! Btw, I gave you a big ole’ shout out on my blog today. Go check it out. I hope I did you proud!
xoxo,
Kim
Rhoda,
Once again I am in awe. You have such a great eye and natural gift for taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary! I wish you could bottle up your talent and sell that in your Open Sky Shop!
I invite you to stop by and enter my giveaway.
Happy Tuesday, my friend.
Deborah
It looks fantastic and was well worth $50! Happy B-day to your Mom!