Fear, it’s a funny thing isn’t it? And before I go on I should let you know the fear isn’t actually the wallpaper, but more of being a little bit scared of something new. And in this case, the actual putting it on the wall part, as that’s something I’ve not done before, or unsupervised anyway; dad was a decorator by trade and so I've never needed to know. I'm sure he tried to teach me on more than one occasion, but...

But I do like maps.

A lot.

I can't tell you the number of rooms and room sets I’ve seen online, in magazines and in real life that I’ve pored and lusted over. I think maps have a timeless charm, they're full of intrigue, the unknown and the anticipation of adventure. So when the opportunity arose to work with Wallsauce, who create made to measure wallpaper murals I jumped at the chance, immediately forgetting how much wallpapering was an unknown, because, well because, maps!

Exactly.

But which to choose?

Despite overlooking the actual wallpapering - again, our brain's are funny things - I knew exactly which wall my map would go on. For maximum impact it needed to be a wall without pictures, or obstructed by furniture and so the obvious choice was the curved wall which encloses our spiral staircase.

When I told MOH he immediately shook his head, not only because he's also a wallpapering novice but because if you can choose any wall, of course you'd choose a curved wall, wouldn't you. Well, yes dear. And so of course, it's going on the curved wall, but which one.

It's not as simple as just wanting a map though, oh no. There's many to choose from on the Wallsauce site, and if maps aren't your thing then there's plenty of other mural options to, and you can even upload a photo of your own. I didn't even go down that option as I've way more pictures than its possible to choose, and of course, maps!

Grabbing a cup of tea, I settled in for a map browsing session.

I'm a classic kind of girl, deep down and so was immediately drawn to the Classic World Map (see below left), MOH nodded but deemed it safe. I disagreed and as I've said before classics are classic for a reason.

MOH is more of a traditionalist and was more taken with the 18th Century World Map (see above right), which while attractive, I thought was a little dark for the space we had. And on closer inspection I spotted that part of the Americas had yet to be discovered and I wanted a full map on our wall.

So that was two discarded, although I still had the Classic Map on my reserve list. Next I tried a different tack, not a world map, but London. We live in London and so I thought that might work.

The vintage map (below left) was a real contender, although I was after a bit more detail so then I saw
The detailed map and I was smitten. It's just my colours too, but as we live where the plant is in the picture (below right) and being a confirmed South London girl, after some consideration I thought I'd want a bit more South London on my walls.

So it was back to the drawing board - or website - again.

My next couple of choices took a completely different approach, and rather than a traditional map they're both a more modern take. I knew they might take some work to convince MOH (the traditionalist, remember) but while I'm a classic kind of girl, I do also like a modern touch - they say opposites attract, don't they?!

So while I liked both the Fly Away Map and the Colour Splash World map (both pictured below) they didn't fit my brief, which I didn't know I even had. I briefly waved them in front of MOH and he even looked quite impressed, I decided though to save the campaign for either of these for another day, and most likely another house.

Because as the best advice goes, you need to know when to open negotiations, don't you? (I think the advice is actually about choosing battles, but I prefer my less confrontational version)

All of these maps are works of art in their own right, and would enhance the right space. In the end though while these were all contenders our choice isn't one of these - you'll have to wait to see what we chose in the next post - sorry, for being a tease!

Choosing a finish for our wallpaper

I’d seen on the website there were three different finish types: textured peel & stick, classic paste the wall and premium paste the wall. Not knowing where to start, I decided samples would be the way forward. My wallpaper-putting-up-phobic self thought the peel & stick approach might be an option. I've used wall stickers before successfully, but realised that before they'd been a much smaller surface area, so a whole wall length might not be the same.

When the samples arrived, I'll admit to rethinking the whole map thing and just going with a zing of colour instead, but I think not having the actual design (or designs) we were considering helped as it was easy to focus on the finish and feel of each sample.

Samples from Wallsauce, the same but different - trust me

We decided against the peel & stick finish, as MOH also thought it might not be as easy as we first imagined, which left the classic and premium options. As you'll have realised by now, I'm no wallpaper expert and nor is MOH, but to us we preferred the feel of the premium sample, it feels lighter and more pliable.

I've no idea if that will help us or not, but I don't think we'll have long to find out as the Wallsauce website says that orders are shipped in 1-2 days, which doesn't give us long to swot up on techniques, so if you've got some wallpapering tips or tricks that you swear by, now would be a really good time to share them with me...

* This is a collaborative post, but all views are my own.