Tutorial: Contact Paper Chevron Wall

Like many city dwellers, we live in an apartment where we are not allowed to paint. At first, I was a little thrown off about what I could do to make the apartment unique and fun without painting. During that same time I had been searching high and low (unsuccessfully) for a navy blue chevron fabric to use for pillows on my sofa. This past fall I was on a big chevron kick. Then the idea came to me... I'll do a chevron on the wall with contact paper! The entire process was very easy, 1 hour start to finish.

Materials:

1 roll of contact paper

ruler

measuring tape

scissors

pencil

painters tape

exacto blade

optional: architectural triangle

Steps:

1. Measure the width of your wall.

2. Roll out contact paper to that length, add 2 inches.

3. Contact paper is gridded on the back, so if even if you do not have a triangle, you can figure it out. The triangle made it VERY easy. I aligned it with the bottom of the paper and drew one triangle. Then I took my quilting ruler (you could use a regular ruler) and drew a parallel triangle.

4. Cut out your first chevron and tape, centered, on your wall. Leave the extra inch in the crack of the wall on each side.

 5. To apply to the wall, peel one triangle at a time, ripping the paper off of the backside and smoothing to wall. This is the part that takes a little patience. Once you get it smooth, take your exacto blade, score both ends in the corner, and peel off excess contact paper.

6. Once you get your first one on the wall, measure from the bottom points to where you would like your next row to start. Measure every point and mark with a pencil. This is how you will align your next row.

7. Do the same for the rest of the wall.

 Two people would have made this project easier.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that in both houses I have tried this in (I did birds in my last house), the walls are lath and plaster, not drywall. Some people have commented that this does not do so well on drywall, so please proceed with caution!! The birds were up for two years and peeled off no problem when we sold the house.

Also, BIG thanks to Design*Sponge for featuring this tutorial! That made my day.