How to Wallpaper With Fabric

Using fabric is a temporary way to decorate your home. You can hide damaged walls or decorate rentals with fabric and liquid starch. Just use inexpensive fabric, then brush liquid starch on the wall. Best of all, you can just spray it with water and peel it off the wall when you're ready to redecorate.

Things You'll Need

• Fabric
• Liquid starch
• Paint tray
• Paint roller

Instructions

1. Wash down the walls if they are dirty, then make sure they have time to dry.

2. Purchase your fabric. You can use flat sheets, curtain panels or discount fabrics from the fabric store or your favorite home decorating store. Purchase enough to cover the area, taking into account the pattern if you want to match it up such as plaids or floral designs. Measure as you would for traditional wallpaper.

3. Pour the liquid starch into a clean paint roller tray and use a paint roller to apply liquid fabric starch onto the wall. Liquid fabric starch can be purchased at most home improvement stores.

4. Decorate the walls of your home by spreading the fabric onto the wall and smoothing it out with your hands. Remove all the wrinkles by starting in the center and gently sliding your hands outward. You can use a rubber trowel if needed to remove wrinkles from heavy materials, such as upholstery fabrics.

5. Continue to add the starch and fabric until the wall surface is completely covered, matching up patterns as you need to.

6. Allow the fabric to dry thoroughly before moving furniture close to it to avoid accidentally pulling the fabric off of the wall.

Tips & Warnings

• When you choose to remove the fabric, spray it with plain water to re-wet the starch. Then, start at a corner and pull it from the wall. Clean the wall with a mild detergent.

• You can use place mats or doilies and liquid starch to create accents in your decorating scheme.