Cover A Wall With Fabric, step by step

Go-to project ever! Ok, I likely say that to myself every month or two, but this one might reign supreme for a while. Especially in the small/straightforward division (our sunroom reno and Teddy’s built-ins might have given it competition if it fell into the heavy-duty upgrade category, but there is no way it belongs there because it was so plain). Ladies & gentlemen (gentleman?), I give you… Clara’s closet:

I have been obsessed with the idea of covering the back wall of Clara’s closet with something lively for a while, especially since images like this inspired me to add some playful to make it feel more like a little hideaway within her room. Right after we moved in she proclaimed her closet her go-to spot in the whole house. She plays in there a ton since there is a lot of space in the back for her dollhouse and a few other go-to toys since we store most of her clothes in her six-drawer dresser with the exception of a few hanging items – and it is a especially deep closet, clocking in at 6.5′ feet deep and 4 feet wide.

I thought we would end up using wallpaper or a stencil for some back-wall pattern, but then we came across this fabric (called Peaceful Perch by Waverly at a local fabric shop called U-Fab – but here is an affiliate link to the same fabric on Amazon) and simply KNEW it was the one.

Clara was with us and before I could even say “what do you think?” she was rubbing her face all over it (she’s her mother’s daughter) and saying she enjoyed the birds. Jackpot. I was going to cover that back wall with that fabric if it was the last thing I did.

So I picked up three yards of it (sufficient to go from floor to ceiling with a little wiggle room to spare) and rejoiced that the bolt’s width was easily wide sufficient to cover that back wall. When we got home Clara went to color something in the office and I fed Teddy in the living room and then she walked into the living room ten minutes later and screamed “YAY! DID YOU MAKE MY CLOSET FAIRLY?! I cannot wait to see it!!” Needless to say the girl never covered a wall with fabric. But neither had I.

The surprising news is that it only ended up taking about an hour and a half to adhere the fabric along that back wall and another half hour to trim it all out for a wrapped up look, so it cannot be done in the time it takes to feed a three month old, but it can be done between feedings (even if your son is on an every-two-hours schedule). In other words, it was way less intimidating and time consuming than I initially expected. And all it set us back was the cost of the fabric, some fabric glue, and some ribbon.

The first thing I did was empty her closet.

Everything came out, including the shelves and hanging bars that you see here which I took out as I went (I needed free access to all of the nooks and corners along that back wall).

I stood on a step ladder with my staple gun and began in the top right-hand corner, stapling it pleasant and tight around the perimeter of the back wall. Every few inches I shot a staple in, making sure they were pleasant and tight against the wall, and that the fabric was not wrinkled or folded. By starting in that top corner with my fully untrimmed three yards of material, I knew I could work my way down and across, keeping things tight and straight as I went, without running out of fabric. It truly was that plain.

I think if I had been working with something striped or geometric in a the-naked-eye-can-tell-if-that is-not-level way, it might have been more of a challenge, but since this print is so wild and free, I truly simply focused on keeping things pulled taut, and stapling them every few inches around the edge.

I even realized that I could wrap the fabric around the shelf board on the back of the closet with a few staples on either side of it so it was pleasant and clean looking.

My only real warning would be that if you have a big flap of extra fabric going on like I did on that angled part (I did not trim the fabric at all before hanging it for fear of cutting it off at the wrong angle or taking too much off that would make the whole remnant unusable), simply be sure you do not staple it behind itself or something. I never did that, but nearly did a few times. If you did it would not be the worst thing because you can simply pop staples out with a flat-head screw driver if you mess up anyway.

I did that a few times if I thought I hadn’t pulled something tight sufficient, or when I got to the bottom of the wall and felt like the corner had a crease or a bubble it should not have. You simply sort of undo a few staples and re-pull things and re-staple until you like the look.

When I wrapped up with all of my perimeter stapling, after the obligatory victory dance with the unplugged staple gun (unplugged is the key word), I ran an exacto knife along the whole perimeter of the back wall to cut off the excess. You will want to put a pleasant new blade in there to get as clean of a cut as possible. I tried to push simply hard sufficient to cut through the fabric but not hard sufficient for it to go into the drywall. Since it is the corner and I knew I’d be adding a trim piece of ribbon for a wrapped up look, even if I jammed it into the drywall a little, it was not a big deal, but for the most part I could slide it through the fabric without digging into the wall itself.

Next came the ribbon for that pleasant polished edge. I held up various ribbon remnants in red, pink, blue, and white that we had on hand and John and I both liked how the pink looked because it blended into the wall color (bold colors like red made it a little busy when combined with such a bold fabric, so we liked the more seamless look of the soft blurs-into-the-wall pink option).

We did not have sufficient pink ribbon simply laying around, so I ran out to JoAnn and grabbed two 6 yard spools (we calculated that we’d need around 8 yards to go around the wall’s perimeter) and also grabbed some Aileen’s Fabric Fusion glue to attach that all the way around. It was nearly like clear silicone caulk, so I simply ran a thin line of it down the edge of each wall…

… and stuck a pre-cut-to-size ribbon against it for each portion.

Here is the wrapped up result:

Once that dried (within about an hour) I brought back all the shelves and hanging rods I had took out, and put the closet back together.

Clara’s PSYCHED about it.

So is momma. Dad’s fairly keen on it too. Burger and Teddy are ambivalent, but I will take it.

The coolest thing about this project is that I fully expected it to be one of those kinda-complex-and-tedious jobs that are worth it in the end, but it ended up being one of those surprisingly-plain-and-straightforward projects that make you beam because it looks way more pricey and complicated than it was. We already have had a few people over and all of them thought it was wallpaper until they touched it and said “no way, it is fabric?!”

What did you folks do this weekend? Any kids-room stuff? Fabric projects? Victory dances with your 16 pound baby? Sometimes I feel like all I manage to get accomplished is to feed these kids and keep them semi-clean, so lively little projects like this are fairly exciting. Especially when I can squeeze them in between feedings. We also managed to get a little hiking in this weekend, and although it involved a particularly “memorable” port-o-potty visit with Clara, it was fairly excellent while it lasted.

Update – Wanna know where we got something in our house or what paint colors we used? Simply click on this button: