apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I love the way this looks but I'm wondering how all those pieces of double faced tape are less damaging than paint...double-stick tape has never cleanly removed from any wall in my house. Is there a trick?

Nautical charts are a good solution too. They're HUGE (and cheap on eBay). I once used them to wallpaper an entryway.

I probably would have gone with either hot glue or rubber cement. Tape can leave a sticky residue, especially after it's been up for awhile, and it's a real bear to remove. It can sometimes also peel the paint. Good luck with that!

There was a AAA on my walk to school and they used curbside recycling pick up just like everyone else in the neighborhood. So when they went through their files and emptied out all of the outdated maps once a year, they were right there for the taking (for all the nonmembers in the house). Maps also make good wrapping paper.

I love that idea!

They should get a really ornate frame, put it on the wall, and just have the white wall showing inside the frame.

cool!

I love maps but this many makes you look like you are either schizophrenic or a terrorist.

Looks like my office

I did this in my kitchen in my last apartment. Let me share with you a very important warning: DO NOT do this near the stove. A bit of a high flame on the stovetop somehow caught a stray corner of map and within a few seconds every wall of the kitchen was on fire. I manage to put it out with towels since there wasn't much paper to burn, but it was really scary.

Nice! The idea of waking up with the world around you...
:-)

Bhavna

It's very dramatic and charming... and of course your sister is going to be responsible about Goo-Goning the sticky residue and properly patching and repainting any plaster that peels off with the tape because she's a good tenant.

I have been collecting maps for awhile, planning to do this in a bathroom in the next place where I have creative control :)
I was planning to use liquid starch to put it up. Dries clear and then peels off with no fuss. You can use this method to put up any kind of paper or fabric. Here's some instructions from DIY network: http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/lv_wall_coverings/article/0,2041,DIY_14133_2270741,00.html

This could turn out either chic or cheesy, depending on the other decor.

@ohdebbieo - That is BRILLIANT! Just what I want for my office/cubicle... I went from half walls to three full walls and it's unnerving all that space to fill. And yay not to damage the paint!

Wow! I need to do that in my appartment!

Thanks for the post - I've been thinking about doing this in my washroom using some of my collection of National Geographic maps.

Still not sure what the best way to hang them and have them stay up despite the humidity will be.

The wall paper/colour must have been really bad for them to prefer this! - it just looks like a mess to me - it would have looked better if they'd ironed the maps before sticking them up

I think that some serious pushpins might be better than double-stick tape for this as far as not ruining the wall. If this were actually want to be permanent, I think I would just go ahead and do wallpaper paste.

In my student flat in London there was hideous wallpaper - but because it was new, we couldn't do anything about it - so I posted posters/pix and so on all over the wall and secured it into the many layers of wallpaper with straight pins - I also think push pins would do less damage than double-edged tape!

I don't really think it looks all that good.