DECORATING | Okay, so here we are on week three of the Fall 2020 One Room Challenge and I’m talking cheap wallpaper.

And I am feeling poor.

I’m not REALLY poor. I mean, I have everything I need, and I really cannot complain. And my extreme thriftiness gives me so much more than the average person on top of that. And even if I had unlimited resources, I couldn’t spend on things I deem “unnecessary” too often. It’s just not in my nature. It feels wasteful. But anyway, I am feeling slightly limited this week, and it’s a bit of a bummer. I don’t know where cheap wallpaper comes into this exactly. It’s just that wallpaper is SO EXPENSIVE. Like, y’all have no idea. It is incredibly incredibly expensive.

This whole ORC thing is also a little tricky because the room is so small and my budget is even smaller. (LOL, “budget”. I don’t really have a budget. Budgets are for people who can’t control themselves and really need to stick to a plan. I don’t have that problem. I just spend as little as humanly possible. Ideally nothing! That’s the “budget”.) And yet I have six weeks to fill with content. So with all that in mind, all I can say is that I apologize. This post is crap. I spent no time on it. I suck.

At this point I am still in the deciding phase for a lot of things. I COULD get a nice paper.

It’s SUCH a small room. It would be doable. I just can’t bring myself to. So I’m sticking with cheap wallpaper options and only cheap wallpaper options. And cheap is still a relative concept. NO SHAME. BUT I WANT PAPER, DAMMIT.

Last time, with the pink bathroom, I felt I couldn’t use wallpaper, cheap or otherwise, because that room gets steamy and the fan was broken. (Strangely, the fan has mysteriously started working again. Like, I have no idea why. Probably ghosts. I do have all those haunted dolls for sale in my shop… Anyway! One day it just worked. Mind you, it’s original to the house and not super effective, but it works!) Still, with a splashy kid and inexplicably splashy husbutt in the mix, I was afraid paper wouldn’t be a good idea in there.

But this bathroom — the yellow bathroom — is NEVER used for showers, and it never gets steamy, so it seems like paper is a real option! Now, I’m still both a cheapskate (see above) and a scaredy cat, so I am not investing in especially nice paper. (Also, again, no sponsors. I wish. NANO POWER LULZ!)

I do want to give a shoutout here to my IG friend Jenasie from Ms Vicious Design, who is planning on using the MOST BEAUTIFUL PAPER in her ORC project. Not cheap wallpaper. I recently confessed that I use an illicitly stolen screenshot of one of the papers she is considering as my phone wallpaper. So I am pretty sure I’m really going to like her project. She also has a handy husband to execute her designs, while I have an annoying academic husband who can’t wield a hammer and is good at being pedantic on Twitter and reading boring academic books like a big nerd and not much else, so I am very jealous, BUT I DIGRESS. She is fabulous and you should follow her.

I intend to go with something vinyl and removable and renter-friendly, even though we don’t rent right now. At the moment, I’m deciding between two options, and I mocked up a VERY PROFESSIONAL peek at those options so you can tell me which you like better. Here, you can swipe:

If you want to see the leopard paper used in a real bathroom, another one of my IG pals has it in hers — check out Jamala of @urvintagegirl.

I’ve actually ordered (returnable) test rolls of both patterns because most of the time, I really can’t tell if I like something until I try it out in person.

This is one reason why I don’t think I could ever be a real, working designer. I may make plans, and may well execute them, but I won’t know for sure if I like something until I see it, and that means I may have to start again. It’s one of the reasons I started selling vintage, too. I love all the things I buy, and always intend to use them, but then… sometimes I change my mind once I see them at home. Sigh.

This is where I am with the cheap wallpaper. The leopard arrived and it’s pretty and I really think it COULD work, but I’m afraid to hang it. I’ve never done this before. And the floral arrived and the background is speckly grey and I might hate it, but at the same time when I tape a sample to the wall, I’m really not sure. I’m not sure yet!

So that’s where I am. NOT SURE YET.

If you want to tell me what you think in the comments, please do. If you have ideas for other budget-friendly options I might not have considered, please let me know. I wish I was a decorative painter. I would paint something beautiful Alas!

Bored yet? Consider following my Will & Bequeath Instagram account. I post pics of my house there! And often, wackadoodle stories that I hope will make you laugh. Or at least smile. Or at least relate.

Thanks to Linda Weinstein (creator of the One Room Challenge) and @betterhomesandgardens (official sponsor of the ORC) for being the coolest Snuffleupagus types in town. I mean, is Linda a real person? I have never seen her. Never heard her voice. She could be a robot! But I hear she’s FABULOUS.

Click here to see all the guest-participants and blog posts.

Pssssst! Hey, do you also like long poetical essays about BIG FEELINGS and shit? I write those too. Just saying. I’m not a one trick pony over here. Or maybe you want to read a sad little children’s story with creepy illustrations? I GOT YA.