DIY Install Wallpaper Border

Save some money by installing wallpaper border yourself. This is a quick way to add decoration to any room in your house.

I wanted a way to dress up some of the rooms in my house without spending a lot of money. I had fun doing it and I discovered it's really very easy.

First, you want to measure the room that you want to install your wallpaper border in. Measure all four walls from side to side. If you have an odd shaped room that doesn't have exactly four walls just measure however many walls you do have. Make sure you go all the way around the room, including any archways, doorways, or windows.

Now you will need to buy your border. Go to your local wallpaper store, or a larger discount store such as a Walmart or a Target, to look at the available wallpaper border patterns. Borders come in all sorts of fun designs and patterns now; you'll see a great variety.

Choose one you like and get enough linear feet to go all the way around your room. Add about six inches per wall if your wallpaper border has a small repeating pattern, or has a pattern that does not repeat. If you have a larger repeating pattern keep in mind that you may need quite a bit extra to match up where the pattern starts and stops as you piece together rolls going around the room.

Some wallpaper border goes up with wallpaper paste, others have the adhesive already on the back and you simply have to add water. Either way, I find that the easiest way to wet the backs of them is to set up a table in the middle of your room with an old cookie sheet and a large sponge. Mix up your paste or pour your water into a dish next to your cookie sheet, and unroll your wallpaper border upside down in your cookie sheet, (so that the print portion is up against the metal of the cookie sheet). The backside will be facing up and you'll use your sponge wet with water or with wallpaper paste to wipe on the paste.

Hold your loaded sponge in place, and pull the wallpaper border underneath it so that it unrolls as you pull, and so that the part that the part you are pulling comes out from underneath of your sponge, being wettened by the wallpaper paste or the water as it goes.

Put your first piece of wallpaper border so that the edge of it begins in the center of one of your walls, (not the corner!). This will make it much easier to match up edges later. Continue the border towards the nearest corner smoothing it in place with a soft, dry sponge to push out any air bubbles.

Go to the nearest corner, wrap that inside corner and then continue along the next wall until you reach the end of that piece. Then start again with the next piece overlapping as much as necessary, to match up the pattern on your wallpaper border.

Continue around your room in this fashion, matching the patterns each time, until you come back around to where you started.

Give your wallpaper border a chance to dry and your project is complete. This is a great way to brighten up any room very inexpensively.

Please click on the author's name (above the article) to read more of her work on Associated Content.

.