Trash Talk Tuesdays Tutorial: A Temporary Wall of Burlap

Last Tuesday, I shared a way to temporarily hide wall-to-wall mirrors in an apartment or rental home. Today, I'll show you how I temporarily covered some ugly wallpaper with rustic burlap!

 

Right as you walk in our front door, there's an eyesore of a wall which the previous homeowners had covered with pink & blue wallpaper ~~  reinforced with some sort of industrial-strength yellow adhesive. The same wallpaper which took us several tedious hours to remove from the bathroom, resulting in ruined sheet rock.

We've been sick of looking at that wall of shame, yet haven't quite gotten in the mood to tackle covering it with wood paneling (which we'll eventually get around to) so in the mean time, I decided to cover that yellowed 1980's southwestern paper ~ with rustic burlap!

Years of Pre-K theme planning on a tight budget resulted in discovering cheap & easy methods of temporary wall decor, one of the most popular being the use of fabrics & laundry starch. By simply rolling a coat of Sta-Flo liquid starch ~ you can temporarily adhere lightweight fabric or paper to just about any wall, door, window, or mirror! When ready to remove, simply lift a corner and the fabric peels right off; any remaining starch residue is easily wiped away with a damp rag.

(If renting, you might want to test a small area first, to be 100% certain)

To temporarily cover a wall or mirror, you'll need the following supplies:

Burlap* or other lightweight fabric

Sta-Flo Liquid Starch

Shallow pan & paint roller (or paint brush)

Drop cloth or plastic (to catch drips below)

Fabric scissors

Thumb tacks

Yard stick

Rolling pin or brayer (optional)

 

*I found a great source of burlap on a roll @ our local Ace Hardware Store ~ in the gardening section of all places ~ a huge 3 ft x 24 ft roll of burlap ground cover (Made in USA to boot!) was just $12.00 (see link above, costs slightly more to order & have delivered to your local Ace if not in stock) Burlap is also available in many fabric stores.

Decide ahead of time if you'd prefer to submerge your fabric in the liquid starch & wring it out before smoothing the fabric on the surface, or roll the starch onto the wall & smooth the fabric onto the starched wall. Either works fine, and both can be a little messy! For burlap, I found it easier to roll the starch onto the wall.

Using thumb tacks, I marked where to cut each piece ~ allowing extra room at the top & bottom for shrinkage. I covered the electrical outlets with painter's tape. Then I used a yardstick & fabric scissors to cut the burlap, applying starch on just one section at a time & smoothing the burlap until straight (I used a rolling pin) slightly overlapping the panels. For reinforcement while drying, I put some thumbtacks along the top & bottom of the burlap panels until the starch dried (overnight) and used scissors to trim around the outlet & to remove any crooked/frayed edges once the panels were dry. You'll want to rinse the starch out of the rolling pin or paint brush & supplies, and wipe any spills with a damp rag.

Note: the burlap had a strong but not completely unpleasant smell for a few days, which eventually went away.  

 

 

For a rustic border along the top, I used the same method to attach jute upholstery webbing. I'm very happy with that wall for now ~ it also makes a great photo background!

copyright 2013 www.redshedvintage.com

 

 

 

 

Trash Talk Tuesdays Tutorial ~ Mirror, Mirror On The (Apartment) Wall

Tuesdays are my favorite day to go junkin' at thrift stores. Usually by Tuesday, the weekend clean out or garage sale leftovers have been donated, priced & placed on the shelves for prime pickin'. As time allows, I'll blog about what I've found & how I've re-purposed/recycled/reused/restored my treasures on Tuesdays.
For the next couple of weeks I'll share some cheap & easy apartment/rental decor ideas, for those who can't (or don't want to) commit to permanent changes in their present environment...

Mirror, Mirror On the (Apartment) Wall
copyright 2013 www.redshedvintage.com
While renting a dwelling might limit the scope of renovation projects, there are innovative ways to temporarily modify your environment. One common dilemma is decorating around wall-to-wall bathroom mirrors.

By hanging a simple curtain rod and tea stained muslin curtains, a powder room can instantly take on a more cozy vibe. I found these lightweight cotton tab curtains at Goodwill for $2.00 (new old stock, still in the original package!) Wanting a primitive look, I soaked them in a dishpan using store brand unsweetened iced tea for about an hour, wrung them out & hung them out to dry in the shower. You can skip that step if primitive isn't your style.

On each side of the wall to wall mirror, there was a sliver of sheet rocked wall space big enough to drill holes for hanging metal rod brackets. An extension rod or shower curtain rod would also work, or even heavy gauge wire attached to wall or ceiling hooks would do the trick.

Using fabric scissors, I cut the curtain tabs at the tops to tie each tab along the rod with a half knot, then cut along the curtain bottoms allowing some room to tuck the ends under. The metal rod (another Goodwill find for $1.09) was sturdy enough to hang a tin lantern on an 'S' hook ~ creating the illusion of a window. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Favorite Memento ~ A Box of Family History

 

 

 

 My favorite family memento is the large box of family history, old photographs & genealogy records passed down to me from my Grandmother; the history of who I am and the who/what/where/when and how by which I came to be, as our family tree grew and branched out.

I must admit that I didn't fully pay attention to Gram's excitement as she joined genealogy clubs & searched for vital information upon her retirement several years ago. After all, I was a single parent right smack in the middle of raising 4 energetic young children. The thought of spending any rare quiet moments of spare time sifting through old photos and birth/death records of my ancestors seemed like quite a chore.

As I've gotten older and my own children are grown, I am so very grateful to have had all these glimpses of our family history handed down to me before my Grandmother passed away. They are indeed very interesting. Old photos explaining who my great-great grand-relatives were and where they came from; immigration papers and passports with photographs and vital information; birth, marriage, and death certificates from a span of over 150 years. Proud photos of 1st automobiles, autograph books with whimsical writings of high school classmates, graduation certificates and honors bestowed for jobs well done. Military records, letters mailed home from war saved by worried mothers & girlfriends anxiously awaiting war endings, metals and ranks received. Locks of hair carefully saved from 1st haircuts, tiny hospital bracelets with beaded baby names, dates & places of the various events of life. 

While Gram did gather a multitude of information, documents, and photos ~ she never got around to properly organizing all that information. Before I get too old to get around to it myself, it's my goal to create a series of organized albums & digital displays documenting where I came from... to pass down for the next generation of branches in our family tree. copyright 2013 www.redshedvintage.com