I Transformed My Walls in an Hour with This Easy Peel-and-Stick Wallpaper

My daughter is going to college in just a few months, and I’ve been pulled into a whole new world of dorm decor and maximizing comfort in a small dorm room. I’m familiar with small spaces, but not familiar with college style these days. So I enlisted help — particularly around a quick and easy way to transform your walls, like an accent wall or simply making a headboard on the wall that’s not actually a headboard. 

Personally I was thinking of tapestries, but instead my daughter had me dig into peel-and-stick wallpaper, which has come a long way since I first started Apartment Therapy.  

Peel-and-stick wallpaper has been around a while, and has become very easy to install. The paper is usually a non-woven PVC-free material that uses eco-friendly inks, and, like you’d expect from the name, you just peel it off its backing and stick it onto your walls.

In terms of design, in addition to the usual repeating prints and patterns, you can also buy designs that can create whole scenes and murals on your walls. There are a number of sites that sell peel-and stick-wallpaper designed by artists, like the ones below that I researched and loved.

• WallsNeedLove: Founded in 2008 in Nashville, Tennessee, these folks do wallpaper and murals, and also allow you to upload your own art to make your own mural.
• Tempaper: Founded by Jennifer Matthews and Julia Au, Tempaper does it all, from wallpaper to murals, decals and custom images. The brand does lots of collabs, too. 
• WallShoppe: Based in Los Angeles, this company sells both traditional and peel-and-stick wallpaper, as well as art, fabric, and pillows.
• ChasingPaper: Created by Elizabeth Rees and Mike Rees, Chasing Paper does a lot of collabs with artists and stocks wallpapers, murals, and tile decals as well.

My daughter and I ultimately went with HappyWall, another company I was looking into. I wound up buying the Mid Century Bauhaus Vivid design to test out in our main office entrance here in New York City. I put in the exact measurements — 218” by 87” which is over 18 feet wide (this was a large wall!) — played with the site’s visualizer tool, and put in my credit card. A month later, 16 wallpaper rolls of Mid Century Bauhaus arrived — shipped all the way from Sweden! 

Yes, I was nervous getting started, but I quickly realized HappyWall knew this and had organized the 16 rolls of wallpaper with big numbers on them (in other words, do this one first … ). They also provided clear instructions as to how best to approach such a large wall. 

The first roll was the hardest, as we had to get it perfectly vertical so the next roll would be too. We measured out from the far left corner of our office’s main entrance, marked it with pencil, and then used a level to make sure our first roll was perfectly vertical. We went slowly on the first, and then we flew down the wall.  

The paper immediately laid flat against the wall, but was easy to lift up if we weren’t quite in line. We started every roll at the top left corner and finished at the bottom, making sure that the paper was level and the design was matching up along the seams. Aside from cutting around a few outlets with an X-ACTO knife (which we then covered up again with the piece we cut out), the project went smoothly and took about an hour. 

At the very end, our last roll literally came right to the corner with a quarter inch to spare and we were done! We did have to smooth out air bubbles with the squeegee that Happy Wall provided for a few days after that, but that was actually kind of fun.

If you’re looking for a quick transformation of any room, but particularly a rental or a college dorm room, peel-and-stick wallpaper from HappyWall is a great solution. 

Buy: Mid Century Bauhaus Vivid Wallpaper, starting at $5.02/square-foot