Makeover with Beautiful Vintage Wallpaper

I am slightly obsessed with vintage florals and tickings as you probably already know. So when I bumped into a roll of vintage floral ticking wallpaper at the thrift store last week- you know it went right in my cart. My husband and daughter doubted it but I had an idea the minute I saw it and knew where it would go.

Vintage Wallpaper

First up- let’s talk about this vintage wallpaper.

I spotted this vintage wallpaper on the shelf at the Re-Store mixed in with other wallpapers and knew it was a keeper. Neutral tones of browns, beiges, grays and yellows kind of bring to mind the 70’s a bit I suppose- but the ticking stripes florals made it feel classic and romantic and I absolutely loved it. And I was born in the 70’s so I guess that makes it appropriate too haha. It was just $2.00 and not quite full but a fairly good size roll. I figured the paste wasn’t going to be good any longer but I planned to just use tacks for a quick and easy change. Of course, you can always buy wallpaper paste and add that to old wallpaper or even use double sided tape as well if you would like it. I kept it simple.

Ready to see where it went?

Vintage Wallpaper & an Antique cupboard

Remember this cutie? This was Free along with another piece and a mirror- and it came with a whole lot of ‘free’ beetles eating the wood. I blogged about these pieces and beetles in this post HERE if you want to read more.

I instantly thought of this cupboard for the wallpaper. And here is how it turned out.

Tacking the vintage wallpaper inside

I didn’t want to do anything that was more of a permanent change- I do like the wood backing & want to be able to change the look on a whim. So messy paste or tapes were out. I decided to simply tack the wallpaper to the inside of the cupboard. First issue I ran into? I could not remove the shelves for anything. I have no idea how we got the shelves out before and then got them back in- there must be a way but it was not happening and I was impatient to get the paper in. So, what I did was lift the backs of the shelves up and shimmy the wallpaper up behind them.

Side note: I didn’t style the cupboard for this as you can see- I simply grabbed a few of my white dishes that were in the cupboard & a vase of roses from the garden for a few quick iPhone snaps before heading out this morning. So I will share more about styling a wallpaper lined cupboard in a separate post.

Using Tacks

I used gold tacks at the top and bottom since that was what I had on hand. Something that is clear would be better but I am not too worried about it for now and can easily change the tacks whenever I get those.

It took 2 sections of paper to cover the back. I am contemplating covering the sides and the top ‘ceiling’ area. But I also want to conserve the rest of the wallpaper for another project. So for now, I kept it minimal in the amount of cut pieces of paper used.

I love how it turned out- and now, I think every single cupboard and armoire will be getting a little sprinkle of vintage wallpaper love.

What do you think of this quick and easy 5 minute vintage update?

For a similar wallpaper look- you can click the photos to shop the look below though note the scale – it is likely much larger than the vintage. *affiliate links

Happy Monday everyone.