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The Secret to Perfect Peel-and-Stick Wallpaper Is in Your Broom Closet

Sarah Everett
Sarah EverettAssistant Editor of Home Projects at Apartment Therapy
I’m from Columbia, Missouri, a journalism town (okay, technically a college town with a big journalism school). It’s also home to one of my favorite things: True/False Film Fest, an international documentary festival. So I’ve been inspired by journalism/journalists/nonfiction storytelling for, I think, forever? I have an MA and BA in journalism from the University of Missouri and Belmont University, respectively. While in school, I worked for city magazines (and also started working part-time for AT!). I learned to love clever, voicey content that’s helpful, whether it’s recommending something to watch or read, helping you get involved in your community, or helping you decorate your home. As Assistant Editor of Home Projects, I cover DIY and design, and I organize the Before & After series. (If you’ve done a cool project, please send it to me!) Outside of work, I love doing the crossword, chatting with friends, drinking iced lattes, and going on little walks and sometimes longer runs. If there were a job that combined those things, I would do that. But for now, I'll do the next-best thing, where I pretty much do chat with friends, read, drink lattes, and go on little walks — with lots of writing, editing, and looking at cool homes mixed in.
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published Aug 22, 2023
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person installing peel and stick wallpaper to wall
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Credit: SBenitez/Getty Images

As an editor at Apartment Therapy, I’ve seen tons of dreamy peel-and-stick wallpaper options — so many that when I moved into my blank-canvas apartment, I knew right away I wanted to cover at least one or two of its large white walls with a pattern or color. I decided to give DIY peel-and-stick a try. 

I landed on Tempaper’s peony-patterned peel-and-stick wallpaper (which I scored for a discount on Wayfair) and covered a wall in my bedroom first, then my entryway. I followed all the go-to tips for peel-and-sticking: cleaning the walls with soap and water first, using a ladder, making sure the first panel of my pattern was totally straight, and smoothing out bubbles with a straight edge. 

It was , and I learned as I went. In fact, I shaved hours off of my peel-and-stick time from the first wall to the second. The hardest part was smoothing out all the air bubbles in the wallpaper and making sure everything laid flat against the extremely not flat walls in my 103-year-old apartment. I used a smoothing tool and my bare hands for much of the wall (and yes, my hands did turn navy from all the smoothing, like when your hands rub against a new pair of jeans), but the hardest part was reaching the corners up high — even on a ladder.

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Credit: Sarah Everett

After wallpapering two incredibly high walls (I’m talking 13-footers) as a 5-foot-2 human, I have a pro tip for you when it comes to getting any curling corners to stick: For the corners you can’t reach, use a Swiffer Sweeper as your straight edge to smooth the wallpaper — or a similarly styled mop with a long arm and flat edge.  

That’s right, the secret to perfectly smooth wallpaper was hiding in your broom closet all along! Is this the most stylish use for a Swiffer Sweeper? Most likely, yes. And the results paid off big time. 

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Credit: Sarah Everett

One final tip for the road: Make sure to double-check that your ceiling corners — notoriously dusty in even the cleanest of homes — are dust-free because that’ll prevent sticking, too. You can use the same said Sweeper with a dust cover on it to accomplish this task (which is admittedly less chic, but equally practical). For another Swiffer Sweeper hack, check out this viral TikTok tip.

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