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Peel And Stick Wallpaper – Working In A Difficult Space

Peel and stick wallpaper is the hot ticket of the moment for treatments on blah walls! In this post I’ll explain how we took a difficult space to work in and transformed the look inexpensively. This is the laundry room at our beach house and we completed a full makeover, finishing up last weekend!

Up above is the semi-before, after we purchased a new washer and dryer when the 18 year old set went kerplunk. I apologize that I don’t have a real before, but can’t find the photos! 😝 This room is not very large and has no window, but it’s quite functional for our needs. We had to replace the countertop and backsplash when we had some sort of leak in the wall a few months ago. We kept the deep farmhouse sink and purchased a new faucet. As you might have noticed, the cabinets have different door fronts! That’s due to the builder only installing the floor cabinet and no cabinets over the washer/dryer. We salvaged those cabinets that are above from a kitchen remodel here. Works for us, especially since this is our second home and we need to stick to a tight budget.

The Best Way To Paint Cabinet Doors

We have painted loads and oodles of furniture and cabinets ourselves over the years! For this small amount of cabinet painting we chose to roll them. The first step was to remove the doors and tape off where the wall meets the cabinetry. Using a small roller, we painted the sides and front of the cabinets first.

Next we laid the doors down on a blanket and rolled them. We use Benjamin Moore paints on our construction site jobs and our own home projects. We start out by applying a good primer and then we rolled two coats of Benjamin Moore Hale Navy satin in the Aura line. Of course allowing time to dry between coats.

The satin finish has a nice sheen to it! The hardware was an extra set that came with the cabinets we used in the bathroom remodels. If you check out these bathroom remodels you might better understand the theme that we are going for at our beach home! In this post you’ll see the two main bathroom remodels…head to toe gut jobs. The powder room renovation has more navy blue…and was our first peel and stick wallpaper attempt. See that post here!

As you can see…there are these annoying and not attractive at all 🙈 utility areas on the wall. However, they are necessary, especially the one that has the washer water shut off valves. So we came up with a creative way to hide them!

Peel And Stick Wallpaper – Working In A Difficult Space

laying out peel and stick wallpaper

For more detailed information on how to hang peel and stick wallpaper, head over here – How To Hang Peel And Stick Wallpaper Like A Pro

Basically you need to:

  1. Measure your space and order the correct amount of wallpaper, depending on the repeats in the pattern. We bought this wallpaper on Etsy and the seller had great instructions about ordering.
  2. Once your paper arrives and before you start, figure out how you’re going to lay it out and match the pattern. More details on my post mentioned above.
  3. Measure, measure, measure your walls once you have the paper in hand and decide where you’ll be placing the first piece. You DO NOT want to end up on a corner with a thin strip, so use your judgement on where to start.

blue leaves modern peel and stick wallpaper

You can see the dilemma here and other than the washer shut off I have no idea what those other things are! My husband is really quite the genius at figuring things out and I left this to him.

peel and stick wallpaper diy in a tight space

See the strip that’s holding the upper cabinet in place? It was my idea to use some foam board and wallpaper it. Then just some tack nails to hang it on the strip. My husband felt that the foam board would warp, so he built a framework with 1 x 4’s. We need to be able to take off the foam board if there is any sort of issue!

laundry room with peel and stick wallpaper installation

After cutting, at this time he attached the 1 x 4’s with a screw gun. Clearly this confused me, but he knew what steps to take one by one.

how to install peel and stick wallpaper

Installing The Peel And Stick Wallpaper

Following along, I watched him attach the first panel of the peel and stick wallpaper adjacent to the corner. This isn’t a large space and it was difficult to work in such a constricted area. Peel and stick wallpaper is a bit like contact paper. You pull away the backing of your cut piece in one corner first. It should be noted that different papers seem to have different stickability. This paper was EXTREMELY sticky, so we really had to get it right the first time!

navy blue peel and stick wallpaper

I didn’t get a good image of him attaching the foam board unfortunately. He used 1 1/4″ drywall screws for that. Last but not least he applied the peel and stick wallpaper over the foam board once it was attached to the wall. It was the only way to cover it in this difficult space. It can be removed if necessary to turn off the water supply. I added a small area rug and a thin hairpin leg table for folding laundry on the opposite wall.

The Finished Project!

Benjamin Moore Hale Navy in a laundry room

There is a small gap behind the washer/dryer due to the shut off area, but it’s not that noticeable in person.

cabinets painted with Benjamin Moore Hale Navy

modern laundry room with peel and stick wallpaper

I love the design of this peel and stick wallpaper!

blue and white laundry room diy

It’s a big improvement and really brightens up the room nicely!

peel and stick wallpaper

Have you thought about using peel and stick wallpaper in a space in your home? Keep in mind that you really CAN peel it off if necessary!

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Peel And Stick Wallpaper - Working In A Difficult Space

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22 Comments

  1. Great job on your laundry room, Janet – the navy and white are so crisp and clean looking – perfect for a laundry room. I’m so envious. Our “laundry room” is the cellar – which is more like a dungeon. It’s been that way for so many years now, I don’t see it getting a make-over before my demise LOL.

    I’m glad to know the peel-n-stick paper is a good option. I’ve been looking at some paper at the Prigold (sale! sale! sale!) site. And I’m just concerned about being able to trim it well enough to butt up exactly. I have a teeny tiny space that I want to paper, so I am able to splurge on some extravagant Scalamandre paper…which is normally out of the question for me! LOL

    Thanks for sharing your transformed room. Now, go get that laundry done!

    1. Thanks Tristan and I LOL-ed at the dungeon reference 🤣 Oh man…I covet a few Scalamandre patterns and have been thinking about my foyer at the Miami house, but not sure I really want to commit long term.

      1. How about framing a large piece and hanging it?

        1. It wouldn’t have worked here, but I have a new piece of art that I made that will cover the big ugly circuit box!

  2. LOVE IT!! I would actually enjoy doing laundry

    1. It definitely makes life more pleasant to have a nice laundry room!

  3. Using foam board is pretty brilliant. I live in an apartment and I might try it.

    1. In this case we had to cover up the drain area, yet it had to be accessible. For peel and stick you can easily peel it off the wall if you move Eileen!

  4. linda of no.cal. says:

    I really like the look … ! Luv the peel and stick wallpaper !!

    1. Thank you Linda…it’s a MUCH happier room now!

  5. I love the navy and white. It’s gorgeous!
    Blessings to you.

    1. Thanks so much Renae…to you as well!

  6. What a refreshing change !
    Love the blue & white !

    1. That’s a great way to describe it…I feel refreshed working in that room now!

  7. Wow looks beautiful! I would almost not mind doing laundry in a space like that!
    I love that blue from Benjamin Moore also! I love their paint! I bought it for the first time when we bought our house. It’s so durable! I’ve only painted our house twice in the eighteen years we’ve lived here. That’s 18 yrs!
    I really want to put up wallpaper in our laundry room. I put up cabinets (their way too high) and replaced the flooring and put tile down. But no matter what I do, it seems to collect clutter on top of the machines. Drives me crazy! So if you have ideas for that I would appreciate it!

    1. What about open shelving over your machines Kim? I really needed the storage in this room, otherwise I might have considered that myself.

  8. Debbie holsworth says:

    What is the name of the wallpaper? Your laundry room looks lovely.

    1. It’s linked in the post Debbie…thank you!

  9. That looks amazing, Janet. Great job. Your beach house is stunning.

  10. It looks very pretty Janet. I love to look at wallpaper, but I’m very hesitant to commit to it. 🙂

    1. Diana…thats the great thing about peel and stick – it comes off so easily that you don’t have to commit forever! xo

  11. I loved the blue and white! You are so lucky that the 2 of you can do the work yourself! I would enjoy doing laundry in that space! My laundry area is also in the cellar and dungeon would be too positive a word for it. Oh, well!