Our Worldly Guest Room (aka How to Hang a Map Mural)

Two weeks ago I shared my guest room makeover, which turned our attic guest room into a light and airy space:

I did a number of DIY projects as part of the transformation, but didn’t go into much detail on any of them in the room reveal post. The emerald green dresser makeover I already wrote about (painting it and then picking new hardware), and the rest I’ll be diving into a bit in the coming weeks. Today’s topic: the map wall.

When I was initially brainstorming ideas for the room, a reader suggested that I use maps as art since we decorated the room for Sam’s sister to live in for a few months (she moved in last Friday, welcome Maddie!) and she’s quite a traveler. I loved this idea, but decided to take it a step further and make a whole map wall. There’s an awesome image floating around the internetz that has had me captivated for awhile now:

I want this in every room of my home, but the guest room seemed like a good place to start since a) we had a lot of blank white walls all of a sudden, and b) everyone who stays in the guest room will hail from elsewhere so having a map up on one of the walls seems fitting. First I had to find an affordable map wallpaper or mural, though. I thought briefly about try to paint something on the wall myself once I started seeing how expensive the mural options were, but since the wall is paneled (and thus not flat) it really would be very hard to do.

I searched high and low, and then finally discovered a map mural at Art.com that was both affordable and big enough — $90 regular price, marked down on a 40% sale when I bought it (they are often — if not always — having 35-40% off sales). It ended up costing $70 including taxes and shipping, which seemed like a totally reasonable splurge compared to many hundreds of dollars I was seeing elsewhere.

It arrived in the mail pretty quickly, so then it was time to get to work. I’ve never done any wallpapering before, and was a bit nervous. It came in four separate pieces to be arrayed in a 2×2 grid, with a small amount of overlap between each panel. My first step was to unroll them and lay them all out on top of each other on the floor.

Next came the very tricky task of figuring out how to trim the panels to the right dimensions to fit on the wall. Not only was the mural much longer than my wall (though almost the exact right height), but since the left part of the wall is sloped, I knew that whatever part of the map would otherwise be in that corner would have to be cut off. I didn’t want the map to center on North America like is typical in so many maps, both for general philosophical purposes (why must we put ourselves at the center of the world?) and because Maddie, the room’s first occupant for the next few months, just spent a year in Chad so I wanted to be sure Africa made it onto the wall.

To get the right dimensions, I measured the width of the wall to figure out how much space I had to work with and how much I would need to cut off. Then I cut most of that off the far right of the map (ie most of Russia, and sadly Australia which is a very special place to me), and a little bit off of the far left. It involved a lot more mental gymnastics than that recap fully captures, but I figure it won’t be super helpful to go through the details since no one else is likely to have the exact same dimensions as me.

Then it was time to start wallpapering! I’d bought wallpaper paste from Home Depot:

Applying it was relatively simple. I flipped the first panel over:

And then coated it with a thin layer of paste using a regular paint brush, making sure to get the edges really well. Then I pressed it into place on the wall. To get air bubbles out, I used a credit card, and then I used a sponge to wipe up any excess paste that came out the sides. It certainly wasn’t perfect especially because I was applying it over an uneven surface (ie the paneling — best practices would be to fill all the grooves in first, but I did not want to do that), but it was good enough for me. I folded the panel in the top corner where it met the sloped ceiling, planning to cut it off later.

I repeated the process with panel #2, which bore the brunt of the sloped ceiling. Before putting wallpaper paste on it, I roughly calculated what would need to be cut off and then cut it accordingly, and then I was able to use an x-acto knife to cut off the remaining excess once the panel was in place. Just be sure you have a really sharp x-acto knife, or it could tear the paper! (she says from personal and very frustrated experience…)

Then panel #3:

And #4:

The bottom two really gave me trouble for some reason — I just could not get the air bubbles out as cleanly as I wanted, and I don’t understand why it was worse then the top two panels. But I’m lucky, because I knew it would be almost entirely hidden when I pushed the bed against the wall like I planned.

I gave it a little time to dry, pushed the bed back, and voila!

Up close it’s definitely not 100% perfect along the edges and in terms of a totally smooth surface, but it’s pretty close and if you aren’t looking for flaws you wouldn’t see them very easily.

I’m thrilled that I managed to get it centered the way I wanted, and I also love the location on this wall — it’s only visible once you’ve walked to the far side of the room, so it’s like a nice surprise and a bit of a fun secret that makes the room more exciting for those who actually stay in it.

Totally worth $70 and a few hours of time to jazz up this room a little!

Plus I’m very happy to report that Maddie arrived a week ago and is all moved in. I’ve already made her do one awkward photo shoot, so I’m sure she’s not even remotely regretting her decision 🙂

(Sharing at Pin Worthy Wednesday, Weekend Retreat Link Party, Inspiration Monday,  Two Uses Tuesday,  One Project at a Time, Think and Make Thursday, Your Turn to Shine Link Party, Remodelaholics Anonymous,  Thrifty Decor Chick’s Before and Afters, Link Party Palooza, and Create It Thursday.)