Decorating My Plain Rooms with Photowall Wallpaper

Call it fate or a sign from the universe, but I was recently given the opportunity by Photowall, a Swedish shop that offers amazingly beautiful and quality wall décor, to actually do something about the state of my bedroom and living room, and giving them LIFE. Just to splash it with some colour.

I mentioned this in my recent post "Roundup of My Life in 2020" where I said that I am terrible at decorating or basically do anything about beautifying rooms because I don't know where to start... and that I've almost always opted for basic white things to pass as "decorating". And so, when Photowall approached me for a blog review collaboration (thank you!), I just knew that this would be the perfect time to get started on working to improve my room.

Here are some pictures of my bedroom before the magical transformation began:

As you can tell, the light grey-coloured walls (similar to our living room) are terribly plain although in daylight, it has this calming and gentle effect on me (very useful when I'm doing work and getting slightly stressed out). Furthermore, my bedroom is actually very small so initially, I thought having everything just plain would give the illusion that my room is bigger than it is. However, sometimes, you just have to get out of your comfort zone and test out what works better for your room. 

And so the wallpaper search began.

Selecting Wallpaper Design on Photowall Website

Wallpaper has never crossed my mind when it comes to beautifying my room. But I immediately had to change my mind when I saw the many, many beautiful designs available on Photowall. I was pretty much spoilt for choice and didn't know which one to pick.

So I called for my most reliable backup support - my mum. 

She should know what I need look for, yet, one hour-ish later, we weren't making much progress. Unless you count the fourteen "favourited" design choices that we saved to look at again later. We were practically drooling over some of their designs, it seemed that the options just kept going and going.

Luckily for us, we made the tough decision and selected "Brick Wall - White", which is this beautiful white-bricked wallpaper that gives me cosy-apartment-ish vibe with dark potted plants and elegant white/light brown frames. Suitable for both my bedroom and our living room. When we first saw this, we knew this was The One.

Filling in the Wallpaper Measurements

We dug out our trusty measuring tape from the tool box and took note of the measurement of my bedroom and living room walls. After selecting the wallpaper design that we wanted, the page transitioned us here: 

We simply typed in the measurements we had written down earlier (added extra cm to leave us room for adjustments later) for our wallpaper. 

The pink dotted lines indicate the tiles and in this picture, there are 16 1/2 tiles altogether for both rooms. Fun thing about Photowall is that you can adjust/drag the picture of the wallpaper around to suit your preference. 

Next, we needed to select if we wanted to have a standard quality wallpaper or premium. We went for premium because we have two adorable, highly unpredictable cats at home. For the sakes of the condition of the wallpaper in the long run, we selected the latter.

We also chose to get the wallpaper kit which Photowall kindly suggested that we consider putting in our cart. Luckily they did because I would have forgotten that I need equipment to put up wallpapers in the first place. Of course, this is totally optional so if you're interested to buy mural wallpapers from Photowall, you don't have to buy the kit if you already have your own equipment.

Then, we were left with selecting which method of delivery we would like. I opted for standard. The next part was to fill in my billing address and other personal details. And we were all done!

I failed to mention this earlier, but €537 was for wallpaper measurement that fit both my bedroom and living room walls. It will definitely cost you a lot less if you're opting for just one wall/room. Hope this clears things out!

Receiving the Photowall Wallpaper

I was totally surprised by how ridiculously fast the products arrived.

No kidding, I think it arrived roughly within the same week that I ordered for the wallpaper. And this came all the way from Sweden! I was expecting at least, I'm not sure, two weeks? Fastest maybe just over a week.

Leo (top) and Dessi (right) checking the parcels out

I really liked that. Then it was time to unbox the goodies! I had two special assistants to help me, Leo and Dessi. These are the things that came with the boxes:

1) First box from the top: equipment and tools for wallpapering. The other two consist of one roll of wallpaper and powdered glue in each box.

2) A closer look into two sections of the wallpaper we ordered.

3) Bringing out all the items from the boxes. Two rolls of wallpaper (1) and (2), and the rest were equipment and tools for wallpapering. There's also an instruction sheet as well!

And the Wallpapering Process Begins...

I was a nervous wreck the night before we planned on wallpapering my bedroom and living room (if things go wrong with the latter, our post-pandemic guests would definitely notice!). This was my FIRST ever experience at doing this so imagine me pouring over hours and hours of YouTube videos about tips to successfully put up wallpaper.

The YouTube tips definitely helped me but I think the wallpaper quality that Photowall sent me made it so easy for a super beginner person like me. There were ready cut-out indicators for each strip of wallpaper that fit perfectly to my wall. The glue was easy to formulate and worked well for me while I adjusted the paper on the wall. It wasn't overly sticky or didn't rip any of the paper as I tried to slap each strip on the wall.

When the first wallpaper strip was successfully glued, we were ecstatic. Even Leo (below) liked the new change to the wall! Seeing how good it looked, we kept on going with the rest!

Roughly 2 hours later, we were done with the wall and it looked just UH-MAZING. It feels like there's so much more light in my room for some reason, really brightens up the environment in here. The ceiling fan was on and I was worried that the wallpaper would slowly peel off. Fortunately, none of that happened. It stayed on beautifully like that.

My Bedroom:

My Living Room:

Another 3 hours later, the second room is done! It looks wonderful! Completely transformed.

So again, here is a comparison of what my room looked like before and after we set up the wallpaper. The difference is so big. It almost doesn't feel like my old room anymore.

Before

 ✨   After   ✨

My Final Thoughts with Photowall

I absolutely loved the whole experience with Photowall, from being spoilt rotten with the many beautiful designs on their website (they have mural/photo wallpapers, posters, frames), to their super fast delivery and the process of wallpapering itself.

The quality of the paper was also good, crisp and easy to stick on the wall, even for a beginner like me. The tools were complete and I used all of them and they each worked perfectly fine. The brush that I received helped me to do everything so much faster and pushing out possible air bubbles beneath the wallpaper before pressing them on the wall. 

I have almost nothing to complain about in regards to Photowall. The experience has been a whizz and I'm still shocked at how easy and fast everything had been for me over the weekend. I'm in my room now and I can't help but steal happy glances at the wall from time to time. It really looks great and I'm glad that I chose to go with this weekend project at decorating my once dull cave-like room. And our living room? Looks like a little a cottage house!

A special big thank you to my parents as well for helping to see this project through. I was so tired after the day was over but we all loved how the rooms looked!

Get a 25% Discount at Photowall!

Through this collaboration, you can now get a whooping 25% discount on any of your purchases at Photowall with my discount code syazwaniizzati25! Take this chance to game up your room look with this limited offer that ends in February 21, 2021.