Mariana's new bathroom was updated and ready to go, one of those spaces that comes finished and move-in ready. Which meant it was designed for everyone in general and no one in particular. It was a good starting point. But it wasn't her. So we decided to make it intentional

Your bathroom is a sanctuary. It's the one room where you get to be alone, where you get ready for days you're not sure about, where you wash off days that were too much, where you recover. It's intimate in a way most rooms aren't. Which is exactly why it matters what those walls look like. A space that important deserves to feel intentional.

Neither of us are wallpaper experts. Mariana isn't, I'm not. But we're two very smart perimenopausal women on a mission to get shit done, and that turns out to be enough.

Here's what we learned: the William Morris Pimpernel pattern in ink sage transforms a basic space into somewhere you actually want to be. The bold print, the dark color, it transforms the room into an actual sanctuary. A space that's chosen, intentional, entirely yours. A bathroom is where you recover and are vulnerable and get to be alone. (Yes, even with kids constantly trying to get in. We're pretending that's not happening right now.)

And Mariana's bathroom got exactly that.

If you've been thinking about wallpapering a room and talking yourself out of it, stop. You can do this. Here's what you need to know.

Before You Order: What Actually Matters

Type of wallpaper Peel-and-stick is easier and more forgiving. Traditional requires paste but feels more substantial. Mariana wanted substantial, so she went traditional. Know which before you order—the installation method changes everything.

Thickness and weight Thicker is more forgiving. It hides wall imperfections and won't tear when you adjust it. Thinner is cheaper and delicate. We were grateful ours was thick enough to handle a second hang and corrections without falling apart.

Pattern type matters Three options: straight-match (pattern repeats at same height—easiest), offset-match (repeats at different heights—more waste), or random (no matching needed).

Pimpernel is straight-match, which meant we knew exactly where each strip lined up. No guessing. No wasted paper.

Always order an overage Order 15% extra. Not optional.

Wallpaper companies have printing errors. You might make mistakes. Walls might not cooperate. You need backup rolls.

We got one roll with a color shift we couldn't use. Because we'd ordered overage, we just... didn't use it. Problem solved. Stay calm.

What You Need

**Supplies**

Wallpaper (with overage calculated in)
Premixed wallpaper paste (we did this instead of mixing our own, its worth the extra money)
A roller or brush to apply paste (I preferred using a brush, the coverage felt better)
A sharp utility knife or wallpaper trimmer
A smoothing tool (we used a plastic squeegee)
Stepladder
Scissors
Clean damp cloth
A measuring tape
A level
A pencil
Patience
Someone else (this is not optional)
That's it. You don't need seventeen specialty tools or a weekend seminar. You need paste, paper, and the willingness to make mistakes.

How We Actually Did It

Pro Tip: Find something to focus on with pattern matching, for us it was this little yellow flower.

We laid everything out on the floor first. Not the wall. The floor. We matched the pattern piece by piece, making sure the repeat lined up before anything touched glue. Then we numbered each strip with a pencil so we'd know exactly what went where.

This took longer than just diving in, and probably made us both a bit more confident that we could do it. It was absolutely worth it.

Also: we did this with three kids running around, a dog, and a cat. There were several interruptions to break up sibling squabbles, multiple moments of "is someone about to walk on the wallpaper" and all of the other million small crises that kids bring to a Friday night. Did I mention that we did this after school? That was the only time we could make work. At one point someone needed a snack. At another point someone was crying about something.

And honestly? It was less stressful with someone else there. When your kid asks you for the fifteenth time if they can have a popsicle and you're holding a strip of wet wallpaper, it's easier if you can just look at a friend and she looks at you and you both just... know. Omg I know, right? Life is insane. There's something about having a witness to all of it, the project and the chaos and the fact that none of it is going according to plan and somehow that's fine, that makes it all lighter. You're not trying to do one hard thing while managing chaos. You're two people in the middle of beautiful, messy life, doing something you both want to do anyway.

Once everything was planned, we pasted and hung. And yes, we made mistakes. One strip went up slightly crooked, the pattern was off by maybe less than an inch. We didn't panic. We took it down, we reapplied, we hung it again. The wallpaper was forgiving enough to handle a second attempt.

Pro tip: remove the toilet tank when you're working in a bathroom. Even for painting. The previous owners didn't. We're not them

“Pro” Tips (Generous Use of Quotes)

Trimming

Don't trim the extra at the ceiling and baseboard until the paste has dried a bit.
Seriously. This is the hard-won knowledge right here. If you trim while it's still wet, the paper wants to crimp and curl, like it's trying to escape the blade. Wait until it has dried a bit, then use a knife so sharp it feels dangerous, and the cut is clean. The paper stays put. You move on with your life.
We learned this by doing it wrong the first time. We recommend learning from our mistake instead.

A Note on Overage

Hand-printed wallpaper means slight color variations are part of the charm. But one of our rolls had a color shift so dramatic it changed the flowers from cream to dark green mid-roll.
Manufacturing is imperfect, even at the luxury end. Which is exactly why we ordered 15% overage, not just for installation mistakes, but for moments like this.
We had a backup. It meant we could skip that roll without stress. For wallpaper at this caliber, overage isn't optional. It's insurance.

The Whole Point

When we finished, we stood there for a minute and just looked at it. Mariana's bathroom was dark and deep and completely different from what it was. We were exhausted and desperately ready for wine and pizza, but we had to stop and appreciate what we'd created, this moody little sanctuary that actually felt like the right vibe.

There are mistakes visible if you looked for them. Alex drew the short straw. He's the only person in the house who has to stare at our mistakes every single time he uses the bathroom. The girls face the other direction.

This is the Hennai way of it: you don't have to know what you're doing. You have to be willing to try.
You have to trust that mistakes are just part of the process, not proof that you shouldn't have started. You have to be smart enough and stubborn enough and old enough to know the difference between something going wrong and your life being ruined.

Two women with no wallpaper training and a mission to get shit done. That's all you need. The mistakes will happen. The wallpaper company will glitch. You'll hang something slightly crooked. And when you step back and look at what you made anyway, you'll realize it was fine all along.

Then we had wine and pizza and sat in Mariana's dining room until 1am chatting with our husbands. Were we exhausted the next day? Yes. But it was totally worth it.

This is the part that mattered more than the wallpaper, honestly. The part where you realize that projects aren't just about the outcome. They're about the people you do them with. They're about laying on someone’s bathroom floor to unscrew the toilet tank, with kids asking for snacks and a dog ready to get out of the crate, and laughing about all of it because you're not alone.

Make time to do more projects with friends. I'm not saying this as advice. I'm saying it as someone who just spent a Friday with someone I love, making her space more beautiful, and feeling like that's the whole point of having people in your life at all.

One bathroom doesn't need to be a big thing. It also doesn't need to be small. It just needs to be done with someone who makes it better. And you just need to be willing to start.

You can do this. Order the overage. Let’s help each other get things done.