reader submissions

Before & After: Blank Space Goes Graphic

Tara BellucciNews and Culture Director
Tara BellucciNews and Culture Director
Tara is Apartment Therapy's News & Culture Director. When not scrolling through Instagram double-tapping pet pics and astrology memes, you'll find her thrift shopping around Boston, kayaking on the Charles, and trying not to buy more plants.
published Jan 14, 2015
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Living room with a large TV on a dark wood stand, adjacent to a dining area with a table and chairs.
(Image credit: Modernize)

What to do when your place is a total blank space? Kristin overcame the unlimited possibilities of her white-and-concrete living room, and went big and bold with graphic wallpaper. See how it looks now:

(Image credit: Modernize)

From Kristin:

There are good things and there are bad things about moving into a house with white walls (not even a backsplash in the kitchen!) and concrete floors. The good: It’s a totally blank canvas. There’s nothing to “undo” — no tile straight out of 1992, no semi-gloss lime green accent walls, no mysterious stains. The bad: I never expected this would happen, but once I moved in I felt a little overwhelmed by just how many possibilities there were. I also felt pressured to hurry up and make it feel less like a cold warehouse and more like a home. Talk about first-world problems, right? Poor me.

For three years I lived in an apartment that had Ferm Living‘s Little Leaves wallpaper in the entry and living room, and I never got sick of it. So the first step to converting my sad, cold warehouse house was clear from day one: I’d hang some wallpaper. I wound up going with Ferm Living’s Silhouette and I couldn’t be happier. The day before it went up, I painted the wall that meets it Gray Plank (Valspar), just so I wouldn’t have to worry about messing up the wallpaper.

This wall took two full rolls, plus one-third of another roll, to complete. The wall is 8 feet wide by 9 feet high in the largest part, and the section above the walkthrough is seven feet by two feet.

Thank you Kristin!