Monday, May 25, 2009

Elephannie love

I have always liked the vinyl wall 'stickers' and fad though they may be, they don't seem to be going away. They're also a fun way to doll up the walls and are renter-friendly. That said, I've never taken the leap thanks to this crazy tapete (bumpy wallpaper) you have on all walls in Germany. How could vinyl stick to such a surface and still look good? Would it stick if I had latex paint? What about rooms where we're leaving the typical German white non-latex paint? I wasn't about to make a purchase not knowing these answers. Enter Etsyian Elephannie. I showed her a picture of this nutty wall surface and asked her what she thought. She'd also never seen such a texture and offered to send a free sample for me to try out.
I then sent her my German address thinking it would take forever, or not even get sent - overseas, extra postage = extra work. No, she must've sent it out right away! I mentioned I'd just snip the sample in half to try on the different paint surfaces, and she actually sent me two samples! Cute birds at that! Awesome! The timing was perfect because her letter arrived in my mailbox just as I was leaving for the new apartment to wait for hours for the kitchen to be delivered. Now I had something to do while I waited.
The little blue bird is perched on my latex 'Grapefruit' room's doorframe. Her instructions were easy to follow and I had it up in about 4 minutes.
Zooming in you can see it looks pretty smooth despite the surface. On some edges it looks not totally stuck on. I thought I did a pretty good job rubbing it onto the wall. We'll see how it looks after a week or so.
The black one I put just over the light switch in Stefan's office. He loves bird watching, so he was all surprised and happy when he came in to see it! He's hoping it sticks for good. This wall surface is the typical German white paint (not latex). It tends to be a little powdery or something, and I really rubbed this guy on the wall hard! I think I had more pressure and thorough-ness on this one than the orange wall one. I think if I had done as much pressure on the orange wall it wouldn't have those gappy edges.
Zooming in, he actually looks way better stuck down that the one on the latex paint wall. But you can also see the bumpy wall texture more here. Both are dark surfaces, so I don't think it's a light-reflecting issue - in terms of seeing the bumps that is.

I'll leave these little birds here as long as they stick. I'll check them periodically over the next couple of weeks as we slowly move in. I'm trying not to touch them as I think touching may encourage them to come off...?? Not sure. Better safe than sorry at this point. I want my experiment to last for a while!

Kudos and many thanks to Elephannie for great customer service! She has some great designs for sale, so maybe we'll see one on our walls in the future!

4 comments :

Lucy said...

Adorable little birds! Did your kitchen arrive in pieces?

Juliette said...

yes. 187 I think. we have to go down to Ikea later this week to use the gift cards to buy all the handles and the table and chair set. Then we should have it all. and can start working on it!

Katie @ makingthishome.com said...

Cool! I was wondering about those vinyl decals on German walls, too. You'll have to let me know how it works. The wallpaper seems so weird, doesn't it?
Katie

Juliette said...

@Katie: they sell some around town and at Ikea too, so I thought something must stick to this tapete stuff, but any local designs I see are not my style. and yes, i HATE tapete! Such a pain to paint, looks terrible with it's seams/repairs, and I'm not a fan of textured walls. Apparently you kind of 'have' to have it. There are pretty smooth types of tapete sold out there, i've seen them at Obi, so if we ever (boy i hope not) have to do our own tapete, we're going as smooth as possible!

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