Easy Upgrade: Wallpaper Your Guest Room

Are you lucky enough to have a guest room? Then kit out that gem and make it into a truly magical place where your guests feel welcomed and treasured. Today we'll explore an easy way to up-level your guest room and make it an inviting place for guests, whether its current state is almost-perfect or it looks like the last guest was a feisty raccoon. 

No raccoons here! This is a larger guest room with our Blue Bohemian Scallops as a feature wall behind the bed.

Why Use Peel & Stick Wallpaper?

There are a lot of options to makeover your guest room — add some accessories, buy a new armchair, paint the walls — but nothing is going to make as big an impact with as little time or money as adding peel and stick wallpaper. Here at MUSE we offer hundreds of design options to suit any taste, and our material is beyond amazing, showcasing exceptionally vivid color and being easy to apply and remove. 

Bedroom featuring our Spotty Dalmatian Large Wall Mural.

Most peel and stick wallpaper projects take 1-4 hours to complete. You need no prior wallpaper experience to make it look great, and this can easily be completed by one person. Plus, the only mess is the paper backing you toss in the trash. The only downside is that you'll want to wallpaper every other room in your house once you finish your first project. :)

In conclusion, if you're looking to make a big change in the room that will make you and your guests say "wow!" then our peel and stick wallpaper is your pick.

Our Black Watercolor Succulents peel & stick wallpaper as a feature wall in guest room.

Pick Your Feature Wall

Once you've settled on adding peel and stick wallpaper, the next question is "which wall should I wallpaper?" There are a few tried-and-true options we'll cover below:

• The wall behind the bed. This is a typical choice for a guest room feature wall because it makes the bed the focus of the room (which you usually want in a bedroom). A beautiful wallpaper behind the bed can turn a very plain bed (white comforter and no headboard) into something special. 
• The wall behind a dresser. This is another popular option because the dresser can offer a place to make beautiful little vignettes. For example: a stem vase with a flower from the yard, a favorite book, and a tiny mirror with a piece of delicious chocolate — all set upon a vintage tray. Imagine walking into a room like that...you see the beautiful wallpaper, your eye draws down to the dresser, and you notice a thoughtful setting of items to enjoy during your stay. How wonderful!
• The first wall you see upon entering the room. The way to get the most bang for your buck is to make sure the wallpaper is the front and center feature when your guests walk into the room. Let it be the first thing they spot as they check out their fun temporary digs. 
• The smallest wall in the room. If you're on a budget, choose the smallest wall to wallpaper. You'll still get the pop of pattern that makes the impact, but with a lower cost. If wallpapering that wall seems awkward to you, think about ways to rearrange furniture in the room to make the smallest wall a natural accent wall. 

Our Found in the Wild peel & stick wallpaper completely transforms this attic bedroom into a magical retreat. 

Choose Your Wallpaper Design

The key here is to choose a wallpaper that works with the decor you already have happening in the room. But that's not nearly as limiting as it sounds once you understand that your wallpaper doesn't have to "match," but rather "coordinate" with the other colors and patterns in the room. 

What do you mean by that?? 

• In terms of color, the color of your wallpaper doesn't have to be an exact match to the other colors happening in the room. As long as your wallpaper has colors in the same color family as your other colors in the room, or contains at least one similar color, you're golden. A room with different shades of light blue, for example, will add layers and texture and create a more approachable look. A room featuring the exact same shade of light blue in the wallpaper, the paint, the bedspread, and curtains will look too matchy-matchy.
• Patterns need not match, either. Most patterns can be mixed, and here are some easy touch points for you to keep in mind: a) keep pattern colors similar or complimentary; b) different TYPES of patterns are preferred, like buffalo plaid + floral; c) different pattern SCALES or SIZES are preferred, like a tiny and busy dot pattern with an oversized geometric pattern.
• Pull it all together with accessories. It's ok to have very different stye decor elements, and you can make them look cohesive with accessories. If your wallpaper is a black and white geometric print, but your bed has a lot of florals going on, add a few accessories that speak to both styles — a pink geometric vase with some fresh stems; a modern pattern throw pillow on the bed; a softer-shaped lamp against the wallpaper. 

This room designed by Jenny Komenda for Real Simple Magazine features our Leaf Branches wallpaper and is full of coordinating elements — shades of blue, florals and geometrics, bold and soft.

Order & Apply Your Wallpaper!

Once you've chosen your wall and picked your wallpaper design, it's time to order. Here's the trick to figuring out how much wallpaper to get:

• To figure out the correct panel size, measure the height of your wall. Your wallpaper panel should be tall enough to cover the height of your wall. Ideally you'll have at least a couple of inches in extra material. Contact us for a custom panel size. 

• To figure out how many of those panels you need, measure the width of your wall. Then divide the width (in inches) by 27. That number is how many panels you'll need. For example, if your wall is 132 inches wide, you'll need five panels because 132 divided by 27 is 4.88 panels — round up to the nearest whole number.

• If math isn't your thing, or if your wall is angled or a little complicated, just send your wall dimensions and we'll help you out.

Deep Greens in this sweet guest room from Mix and Match Design Company. 

It's also a great idea to order a sample. Our reduced scale samples are great for a few things:

1. A sample lets you gain confidence using our luxury peel and stick material.
2. You can see all the colors in person under your existing lighting conditions.
3. You can test the material on your wall, which may be important if your wall is textured, if you have a non-standard surface (like a refrigerator) or if you need to prove to your landlord that it's A-ok for use in your rental.

From one of our customers, this crisp black and white wallpaper looks great behind the bed, split at top with molding. 

Once you've tried a sample and ordered your wallpaper, the final thing to do is apply. We include instructions in our package, and you can also find them here. You may also want to review our FAQs for some extra tips. 

The beauty of MUSE Wall Studio peel and stick wallpaper is that anyone, even total wallpaper newbies, can apply it with complete success. It's a mess-free project that requires almost zero prep work. Just be sure your wall or surface is dry and free of dust or greasy residue.

A fun, bold wall mural in a bedroom from Jenna Pilant at Room Bloom

We hope this mini photo tour + tips has inspired you to be bold and give your guest room an upgrade this year. If you have questions about our peel and stick wallpaper for your specific space, reach out and one of our Design Consultants will get in touch to help.