vintage wallpaper valuable home decor and craft ideas

Vintage Wallpaper can be valuable! — Vintage Tropical Palms wallpaper selling price $495

Vintage mid-century wallpapered bathroom wall

Don’t throw away that old wallpaper!

It seems to be everyone’s nightmare: Buying an older home, which has had wallpaper applied in almost every room.

Believe me, I know! Four years ago we purchased a home built in the 1960’s. Almost every room featured tacky wallpaper on the walls-even the hallway had a grass-like textured wall covering. Removing one layer of wallpaper is not hard, especially if it was applied post-1980’s. In my case, when we attempted to remove the wallpaper, there wasn’t just one layer-but under the first layer was another… and then another. Three layers of wallpaper to be exact!

In the new millennium, the trend with homeowners was to paint interior rooms with decorative brushing techniques (e,g., rag-rolling, distressing, stenciling, sponging), and to strip any wallpaper left from a previous homeowner. Around 2010, a new trend started with hiring an artist to hand paint eye-catching artwork, or a mural on a wall.

Currently, wallpapering a room is back in the limelight. Homeowners and professional interior designers want those patterns, textures, and colors again on walls. Pastel florals (especially rose-themed), Art Deco and Nouveau ornamental art; metallic or foil types, colonial and geometric-MCM patterns, are trending again.

Did you know? Metallic or foil wallpapers can make a smaller room such as a bathroom- look larger. The light reflected by the metallic covering can make a small room appear spacious.

Wallpaper gives a room that particular personal touch. Home interior designers can change the atmosphere of a home dramatically, by adding wallpaper to a wall, or as a background to a shelved area.

Mid-century geometric wallpaper — Bold geometric wallpapered wall

Here are some craft ideas you can do with vintage wallpaper rolls:

Use artsy wallpaper to create framed pictures or create colorful room dividers. Keep the paper smooth and mount onto a thin foam board before framing the panel.

Create a piece of artsy furniture-once considered worthless or boring-by painting and adding wallpaper to table tops (under glass), dresser or drawer fronts and bookcases.

Re-purposed end tables using paint and wallpaper

Re-purposed dresser with the use of paint and wallpaper

Wallpaper covered price tags/labels and gift tags

Doll up those plain white store price tags and labels with wallpaper. This is a great idea for gift tags and decorative store tags! (This particular wallpaper re-purpose idea I love because I run an estate sales business.)