When renting and you want color....

Since I'm on vacation right now, and don't have easy access to a computer, I thought I would do a little "looking back" at some of my favorite projects!  This is a repost from a few months ago when we first moved into our house.  This is one of those projects that I love so much that when I walk past it, I just have to take a second look at it and smile!! 

Oh....by the way - - I had a great time with Beckie!  Monday I am going to show you the chairs we did, so make sure to check back!!

As you know, we are renting our home in Virginia.  Since we don't know how long we will be here and I still break out in hives just thinking about our last homeowning adventure, renting was the best option.  We have a great home here, but I do find it hard not owning our home because I can't do everything that my creative mind thinks up.  It is the same when you are living in military housing, there is only so much you can do and still be able to "return" it in it's original condition! 

Since we don't know how long we are going to be here, hubby declared this home a  "No Painting Zone."  Meaning....blah white walls :(  It is so hard for me to have white walls.  I love color, I love texture, I love patterns... what is a girl to do?  Pull out the fabric of course!!  I figure a few holes in the wall is no worse than a few holes from hanging pictures and curtains - - right?  Right!

Sooo.... here is a before picture of our dining room.

See, plain -  old - boring beigh walls.  Uck! 

Enter beautiful fabric bought knowing that something great was going to happen with it, but no exact plans!

 I bought up a ton (more like a moving crates worth) of fabric before we moved.  I had the best source in CA for fabric and I have yet to find anything even remotely like it around here.  In fact, I am even thinking of flying back to CA just to stock up on fabric again and fill my suitcases and utilize UPS to get it all home.  It would still be cheaper than the prices I am finding out here.  And the the selection was WAAAAAAYYYY better!  It's hard once you have been spoiled by something to find anything that can compare!

Anyway, back to the walls - - I didn't have enough fabric to cover the entire wall all the way around the room and to be honest with you, I think that would have been too much pattern for the room.  So I only put it on the top 4 ft of the room, then added a chair rail and some trim along the top.  Much better!  Now all I have to do is get moving on the slipcovers for my chairs because the burnt orange floral on them is really not working with the red birds!!

So... if you wanted to do this, how would you go about it?  Well, I will give you my version - - remembering that I am doing this in a rental home, so I am trying to make as few marks on the walls as possible... if I were doing this in my own home, I probably would have done it way different.

First, I measured the repeat of the pattern on the fabric.  It was just at 24".  Perfect!  I cut my fabric at exactly the same spot in the design every other repeat (or in my case every 4 feet).  Then, starting at the far right side of my room, with furniture tacks I tacked the first piece of fabric along the top edge, then starting at the middle of the bottom edge I tacked the bottom, then the right side, finishing with the left side.  By doing this, you keep the fabric from bunching and you can keep the pattern fairly straight.  My fabric was printed right off the selvage edge so I just overlapped the right edge of my next piece of fabric matching up the design.  Since my furniture tacks were going to show along the edge, I decided to make them part of the design and placed one every 4 inches or so - - nothing exact.

After I put the fabric up all the way around the room, I needed to cover the rough edges along the top.  I did that easily with ribbon and since I want to be able to take everything down with minimal damage, I just put the ribbon up with doublesided - removable - poster tape.  So far it seems to be working.

Next, I needed to cover up all the rough bottom edges.  Again, remebering minimal damage - I put plastic anchors in the wall in a straight line every 4 feet.  I painted my trim red (before putting it on the wall) then drilled through my trim and screwed it onto the wall using the anchors.  Then went back over the screws wtih some red paint to touch it up!  This would be where if it were my house, I would just pull out the nail gun and use as many nails as necessary, or even easier, just pull out the liquid nails and slap that baby up there for the rest of eternity!

Here's where I need your opinions - - If you have actually read through all of this! - - I'm thinking that the red might be too much and maybe I should repaint all the trim white and replace the red ribbon with white - - for a cleaner, "lighter and brighter" look.  What do you think?

Now, all I have to do is figure out exactly what I am going to put along the "picture shelf" and of course, get on those slipcovers!!