COPACABANA

“Her name was Lola, she loved to paper

With yellow flowers in her hair, pasting table standing there”

Copacabana - closed for refurbishment

After a few copas in the cabana, Barry Manilow realised that a song about wallpapering was never really going to catch on so he changed the lyrics and the rest is history!

Coving complete, it’s time to roll out the Deco Paradiso at the hottest spot north of Havana to create a lovely feature wall behind our bed. 

Coving - what a difference it makes to a room

Textured feature wall to go behind bed

Ugh!  20 years worth of dust bunnies under the bed

I truly adore this wallpaper with its intricate geometric fan-shape pattern. It always goes up well and paints up nicely.  I’m sure it’ll look gorgeous painted light yellow.

Deco Paradiso anaglypta wallpaper from B & Q

Hindsight is always a wonderful thing especially when decorating and it wasn’t long before I realised that I should have stepped back, looked at the overall job first then scientifically worked out the best place to stick the first length of paper before getting stuck in.  Bear this in mind fellow novice paperers.

Paste the paper then leave for 5-7 mins before hanging

In my mind, it seemed like a good idea to start at the very beginning with the first length of paper flowing out from the corner nearest the window.  

Are you starting in the right place?

Four lengths of paper later as I reached the door frame, the penny dropped.  Yep, I should have started from the opposite corner above the doorway as now I’d have to fill and pattern match a wafer thin gap tapering up from the skirting board.  Duh!

Making good progress

Oh dear!  I should have started in the other corner

Luckily, this small lapse of judgement is behind the door and once painted, you’ll never know the difference.  Imagine having to rip off all the paper to start again.  

Plain painted wall beforehand

After the Deco Paradiso treatment