Thursday 19 April 2012

Plain white walls

A common complaint amongst foreigners living in Japan is the boring white walls throughout ALL rental properties.  My last place had a few heavy duty hooks that could be moved along a track in one of the walls, allowing me to actually hang things from the wall.  Because heaven forbid you put holes in the wall - you will die a horrible death when your landlord finds them, or at least have large portions of your safety deposit withheld.

But plain white walls are boring when you've grown up with wallpaper (not that I want the pink flowers I chose as an 8 year old!) or coloured walls (nor do I want the oppressive dark navy walls and ceiling chosen for the basement bedroom by the teenage son of the previous owner of my dad's last house) or artwork and photographs hanging on the walls (although I must admit given the past year I'm not too keen on having glass hanging anywhere...).

But anyways...

White boring walls.

I don't remember where I first heard about wall stickers - I think it was another Japan blog but I can't remember... I do remember that I did a quick google search and found this design and knew it would would go perfectly in our living/dining area.  (It isn't particularly colourful, being in shades of browns and greys, but it is comforting and relaxing)  But I didn't order it right away.  U wasn't too sure about the whole idea of wall stickers and so I dragged my feet until one day I ordered it half because I simply wanted to close the browser tab with the store's website (that I had had open on my browser the entire time).

The package arrived in the mail and spent nearly a week unopened before I suddenly decided one afternoon, while I was chatting to a friend on Skype, that I wanted to put them up.  And I did.  Never one to stick to the 'way things are done' I didn't want to make the perfectly round tree shown on the website.  I freestyled it, and ended up with a design that I love and has gotten lots of compliments - most importantly from U!




Not long after I started getting really fed up with the boring white walls in our bedroom so I turned to google again.  We bought some brightly coloured fabric in Indonesia that I am hoping to some day turn into a bedspread/quilt for our bed, so I was looking for a very specific set of colours and design.  Surprisingly it didn't take me long to find exactly what I wanted - with a HUGE range of colours to chose from.  This time U was just as excited as I was and helped me put them up too!

our Indonesian fabric and the plain colours I've bought to make the bedspread...


Our new, colourful and fun bedroom! (the stickers are in orange, blue, and green, and match the fabric perfectly!)


No more plain boring walls for us!

9 comments:

  1. I love the tree too! It's a bit like a reverse fall, because it looks like the free-floating leaves are coalescing on the tree. I guess that's because I look/read from left to right - perhaps in a culture that reads from right to left, it'll look like a typical windy fall day! And that Indonesian fabric is lovely - reminds me of Malaysian designs too. I'm glad you found this neat way to brighten your walls - looks great! love, Cath

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    1. The leaves go all the way over the TV and shelves beside it, and they do look a little more wind-swept in real life!

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  2. I've never heard of wall stickers! They look amazing.

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    1. They are pretty amazing things! There are regular sticker types (the tree and leaves) as well as ones put on in reverse with clear cover layers to be removed in the last step (swirls) but whatever the style the are an amazing invention!!

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  3. Here's another thumbs-up for the stickers (especially that tree!) and the fabric.

    This particular shitamachi apartment uses books as wallpaper. :D

    PS: Yes, there was a book avalanche during the big quake.

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    1. My shitamachi apartment was lined with bookcases too! ;) the benefit of living out in the outer reaches of cummuter town, however is (besides the fact that U can commute to the university in under a half am hour drive) that we each have a room for books separate from our bedroom! I kinda like knowing I won't be buried under books if an earthquake were to happen in the middle of the night! But I do miss a bedside bookshelf...

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    2. Oh! I'm sure you would have approved of my dad's old study - he had bookcases lining the walls and even a bookcase on the back of the door!

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  4. I love your wall stickers they're beautiful. The are very popular on Pinterest at the moment!! My kids have some in their rooms but much smaller ones, Miss Sunshine's is a Fairy House it's so cute. I'm surprised how they can transform a room so easily and quickly. The only downside I have found that is one of our brands doesn't stay stuck on the textured wallpaper so I had to glue it on...can't do that in a rental hey!!!

    My bedroom has a feature wall which is machaa green and ironically I am looking for white butterflies to stick on it, if you see any would you let me know? I found some, plastic 3D ones in a store here but I'd need around 15 packets and they were 1400 yen a packet!!!!! Ouch!

    looking forward to seeing your finished bedspread too : D

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    1. White butterflies? Right! Got it! Will keep an eye out.

      And yeah, the bedcover will happen... One of these days when I don't have three articles to be written and Girl Scouts taking upy weekends! Sigh...

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