Office Makeover Part 1: Wall

This semester I have officially become a grad student.  As part of this change, I have acquired an office.  It is only slightly bigger than a closet, but it is MINE.  Most importantly, it has a door, and thankfully I was one of the lucky few who got a window.  I am really enjoying the natural light, not to mention the view.

The previous office occupant didn't do much to improve the stark white closet appearance of the office space.  And by "much" I mean "nothing".  I get the feeling that she rarely used the space, due to the copious amounts of dust I had to clean up.  Here are some pictures I took the first time I walked into the office:

See what I mean?  I wouldn't be very happy working in this kind of environment.  Also, for perspective, the one time I had a meeting with the previous occupant, her office chair took up that whole space in front of the computer.  I attended the meeting from a chair in the hallway.  Classy, right?

Clearly, something had to be done.  This post includes details on how I created an office space that I enjoy being in for less than $50.

First, let's start with adding some color to a wall.  I thought about painting an accent wall (yes, the department does allow painting).  However, painting is kind of messy, and would require transportation of too much equipment across campus.  Also, it is rather permanent.  If I ever wanted to change the color of the wall (which is a likely possibility given that I have 5 years of school left), I would have to prime AND paint, and who wants to do that?

The budget-friendly painting alternative I found was to starch a piece of fabric to one of the walls.  Because I wanted to avoid seams on the wall, and because buying a single cut of fabric large enough to cover the wall would be extremely expensive at a place like Joann's, I went to Walmart and bought a king size flat sheet for about $15.  It wasn't quite big enough to reach the ceiling, but that isn't an issue.  It covered enough of the wall to add some color.  (Plus, there is a super annoying pipe sticking out of the wall that I didn't want to work around, so that is where the sheet ends :) )

Here are the primary blog posts that I used for instruction.  The first one is my favorite:
http://www.howaboutorange.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-to-wallpaper-using-fabric.html
http://kristendirmeier.blogspot.com/2008/09/purple.html

I ran into a few problems doing this.  First, my wall is bigger than a door.  I couldn't starch the whole thing, line up the sheet, and get it on straight before the starch dried.  I was doing this project alone (I don't think that another person would have been able to fit in that office), so I didn't have anyone to help hold the sheet up.  Therefore, on my first attempt I relied a little bit too heavily on the topcoat, hoping that if I put enough starch on the front surface of the sheet it would soak through and stick to the wall.  I will tell you right now that this is probably NOT the best idea.  It sort of worked...at least it looked pretty good when the sheet was wet:

That afternoon I went home with that self-satisfied successful DIY feeling.  But the next day I came back to discover that most of the wall hadn't really stuck to the wall and had dried in some pretty terrible looking wrinkles:

Clearly, there was a reason for putting a significant layer of starch directly onto the wall.  So much for taking the seemingly simpler route.

For the redo, I misted half of the sheet with water and peeled it off the wall.  (Yes, it does pull off nicely when damp, and doesn't affect the paint underneath).  I then quickly slopped a liberal amount of starch directly onto the wall.  I smoothed the sheet as fast as possible.  I still had to restarch a few spots, but it worked out pretty well.  I then repeated the process on the other side, though I had to tape up the still-wet first side to keep it from pulling off.

So, here are my tips that I would follow if I were to repeat this project:

-If you are covering a large space on your own, line the fabric up how you want it and secure it with tape or pins.  Then fold half of it back and tape it.  That way you can spread starch on the wall without crawling underneath the fabric or pulling the sheet up and ruining any previous work.  After the starch is on grab the taped back half and stick it to the wall.  It should still be lined up.

-I didn't experience any fabric shrinkage.  If you would like you can cut the fabric before sticking it on the wall.  It would be easier that way, but you also have to have good alignment skills to get it back up perfectly in place.

-For this project I had to make about 3 batches of starch.  Of course, I basically did the project twice.  To get a king sized sheet on the wall it would probably take about 2 batches.  (The recipe is in the first link).

-Finally, I would NOT put a layer of starch on top of the fabric like the second blog post instructs.  Maybe it was because I did it twice, but I ended up with white splotches all over the wall (hopefully you can sort of see them.  Maybe?):

Unless you are using a heavier fabric, the layer against the wall should be plenty to hold the fabric in place.  I think that I will attempt to bring some dish soap and a toothbrush up to campus one of these days to see if I can get the worst spots out.  I'm not sure why the starch dried clear in the other blog post...

Regardless of how imperfect it may be, it really helped the office space to look better:

The clean up for this project was super easy.  Starch and water don't stain, so I didn't have to worry about getting drips on the carpet- they just wipe up.  And the only things I had to bring to campus were a couple of mason jars full of starch, a foam brush, and a plastic rectangle for smoothing.  Nice, huh?

There are a couple more office makeover blog posts if you are interested in the finished product.  Make sure to leave any questions or comments below! :)