I’m a DIY sort of person; nearly everyone that has seen my basement knows this immediately. Strewn around my basement is a myriad of projects, all of them only 5-10% away from being finished. It seems that I love to try and make my own versions of things, but I get caught up in the creation process, that when it comes to 
actually finishing the project up, my brain decides that it was a dumb project to begin with.
However, those are simply the successful projects. There is a special place where I put the projects that were so large a failure that I can barely contain my shame. This special place was designed out of necessity, and has prompted many complaints from my wife; the fire pit.
I’m completely serious. I end up doing so many projects a year that turn out so horrific that I fear that putting them in the trash would constantly erode the sanity of my very friendly garbage man, Luke. The most recent project to get immolated was an attempt by me to take a leftover roll of wallpaper and make my own wallpaper borders. There are a few specific reasons why this is a bad idea; learn from my mistakes:
1) Wallpaper Borders Have a Specific Design:
Just like there are different classifications for wallpaper depending on what it is supposed to endure, wallpaper borders have specific designs that make them perfect for what they’re used for.
For instance, I bet you wouldn’t think that cutting in a straight line is a big deal. However, trying to cut of wallpaper into a straight line without some sort of giant paper cutter is a practice in patience. Now, I have a great workspace in my basement, a strip of space about 30 feet long running between two well-supplied work benches. However, it wasn’t the lack of space that was the problem, but both the pattern of the paper and the roll in the wallpaper itself.
As anyone who has wallpapered will tell you, the hardest part is getting it on the wall. Partially because the glues that are recommended for using with wallpaper seem to be made specifically to not stick to wallpaper. However, the other part is because wallpaper comes in a tightly bound roll, and its very hard to stick wallpaper on a wall when its constantly trying to curl away from it. Trying to cut wallpaper also lands you headfirst into this problem. No matter how many books or bricks you use to hold the paper down, there are always a little bubble or bump in the paper. When you are trying to cut a strip that is 16 feet long in a perfectly straight line, it’s impossible to accomplish when the wallpaper itself seems to be working against you.
Second, wallpaper is meant to be seamless. The pattern is printed in such a way that even through wallpaper is put up in strips, the edges seem to disappear and the pattern melds into the other rolls without any effort. When you are trying to cut a straight line, this turns into an illusion that your eyes have a hard time combating.
2) Perspective is more Important Than I Knew:
Now, after struggling for 2 hours, (no exaggeration), trying to cut four 16 foot strips, I had the material in my hand. It was time for a dry run.
I’d like to take a moment here to give you a pro-tip for wallpapering. Always tape it up first. Cut your strips, and tape them to the wall in the way that you plan on doing so permanently, so you can see how it looks. When I did this with my brand-new DIY Border, my eyes were treated to a visual smack down.
Not surprisingly, wallpaper borders are designed to do a certain job. Sometimes they are going to be put against the floor like a baseboard, other times they will be used as a creative picture frame, or a room accent in general, or in my case, it would act as molding against my ceiling. Each of these wallpaper borders are printed differently, because the angle at which you view them is different. For accent borders, the color is evenly printed; so that it looks uniform no matter which direction it enters your eye.
However, for baseboard and molding borders, the color is actually lighter facing the room, and becomes darker towards the floor. The reason for this is that dark colors tend to make a room look smaller, so to avoid that, printers have slightly changed the saturation of the colors to make them a little lighter on the wall-side. If you didn’t know that either, don’t worry, but learn from my mistakes, as soon as I put the border up near my ceiling, I almost involuntarily tilted my head like I was ducking under a tree branch. It’s astonishing what color can do to a room.
3) It’s a Waste of Time and Money:
This is what both previous points have been leading to. So, to start my project, I had a leftover wallpaper roll that had cost me $55. I had planned to get the most out of that money by using the wallpaper again to border another room that had paint.
Instead, I ruined the wallpaper roll over 2 hours of failed cutting. Each 7 inch strip seemed to come out worse than the one before it, and it was only when I had my son come and set up a perfectly straight string tied to the walls of my workshop that I made any meaningful progress.
Then, after putting the wallpaper border up on the wall, which took another hour, I realized right away that it made the room feel terrible. So another 30 minutes of ripping it down, and then another 20 dragging it to the fire pit and disposing it.
Overall, I wasted 5 hours and completely ruined the rest of the wallpaper roll. My advice is to just purchase the wallpaper border, and save yourself the time, energy, and uses that leftover wallpaper roll for craft projects with the kids. At least you don’t have to learn the hard way.
Pete Wise is a Content Creation Beast and White-Hat SEO Jedi. This article was researched through trial and error for Discount Decorating Online, who sell deeply discounted wallpaper and wallpaper borders. Please follow Pete on Twitter: @MySEOHeadache
