Can't paint apartment walls...want to hang cloth..?

Question

I need suggestions or maybe websites that give me ideas about the 'how to's' for hanging cloth up to give a room a "painted" look. I'm moving to a new apartment soon and they are forcing me to keep the paint white - which I absolutely can't stand. So I want to just use some small nails or maybe staples to hang cloth...what do you think?

Answer 1

I've never thought of that! Neat idea!! You can also get wall paper that takes up a whole wall. I had that and just nailed it up. That way it didn't wreck the wall. As long as you stretch your cloth tight it may look really cool!! Thanks for the idea! I have a 12 year old who has her room in the basement and you can't really do much down there but this? I can do!!

Answer 2

It's a pain. However, if you're really sold on this idea, you might as well make it easy on yourself.

Go to a Home Depot and get yourself some 12'-14' pieces of 1X2 pine. Cut the wood to fit the room like trim. Paint the pine a nice accent color, then staple the fabric to the back. All you have to do is make sure it's stapled on at the right angle. Just remember that the pine will probably not be straight, so you'll need to put the fabric on it so the edges are right. When the pine goes on the wall, you will straighten it out then. As long as you've factored that in correctly, you won't have any problems. Just start at one end of the room, and push the pine into place as you go. No biggie.

You can nail the wood to the wall at every stud, and you get instant trim molding in the bargain... It will be much stronger than stapling it to a wall, or velcro. It will also be easier to remove when you leave. (The added bonus is that all the real labor can be done on a table instead of over your head while you stand on a ladder...)

Don't forget to go back and paint the nail heads.

-SD-

Answer 3

We live in military housing and have the same problem!

I have done all three of these and it works really well!

1. You can get a piece of fabric and adhere it to a strong backing (we used cardboard). I started by startching the fabric to make it very "tough" and smooth. Make sure you pull the fabric tight so it doesn't have bumps in it when it is hung. We then just nailed the four corners up so it looked like we had a large picture hung there. It added the color to the room that we wanted!

2. We took 2 large pieces of 1 by 1 wood (measured to the same size as the width of the walls top and bottom. Again, I startched the fabric and stapled the fabric to the wood pieces on both ends of the fabric. We then hung the fabric cloth by attaching the wood pieces to the wall at the top and bottom of the wall. It covers the entire wall and worked really well. For added security that it won't fall down, you may want to put a third peice of wood in the middle and attach that to the wall as well.

3. We have also hung wall border by adhering it to poster board (so the glue doesn't get on the walls when it is humid) and hung that around the room with sticky tack. It is a perfect way to decorate a room when you have so many restrictions!

Have fun with it and go crazy!

Answer 4

The cloth can be a neat idea if you drape it losely etc. If you are looking for a tighter look it can be more of a hassle to keep it perfect.

Personally, I would just paint.

Depending on how long you are going to live in an apartment, chances are you will lose your deposit anyways for whatever reason. I've lived in my apartment for a year now and painted one wall in my living room, faux finished my bedroom and hung a border in the kitchen. I still have six months on my lease and may even stay passed my lease so it was worth it to paint.

If I am concerned about getting my deposit back- I can repaint before I can move out. They can deal with it!!

So my advice is just to do it! I love my apartment that much more, it feels like home now.

Answer 5

Fabric seems like a neat idea (no pun intended) but it is actually quite a hassle. You'll have a bazillion little holes to fill, and then paint when you take the fabric down at moving time. The fabric will also attract a lot of lint. Your better off getting a paint sample that matches the wall color that is up now, painting what ever color you want while you are renting and painting the walls back to their original color when you move out. Even with all the painting and repainting, it'll probably be cheaper than the fabric.

Answer 6

I too think that's a pretty neat idea. To avoid so many small holes, you could put up furring strips on the walls, tacked in a couple places, then tack the cloth to the strips using tacks too short to penetrate the furring strips into the wall behind. I would imagine the trick would be to avoid sags and "droops" in the material in order to make it appear "paint-like." Perhaps you could a web search on wall coverings etc. You'll evetually find something on the net.
Good luck!

Answer 7

You can circumvent all of the holes, and all of the painting by simply starching your fabric with liquid fabric starch. HGTV has step by step directions right here:

http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/dc_fabrics_other/article/0,,HGTV_3390_1373839,00.html

Since your apartment manager has said the walls must stay a painted white, I would not try paint it differently and simply paint it back to white when you move out, because if you are caught (especially if it's in the lease agreement) you may be evicted...and how much would THAT suck??

I plan on doing this in my next home...so follow these directions, and GOOD LUCK!!

Answer 8

Great idea but all those little holes to patch is worse than repainting back to original color. How about wallpaper border? It is available in self adhesive (the same idea as contact paper but it is easily removed with NO wall damage). Easy to put up, fairly inexpensive and comes in scads of designs! If you really want to get creative-find a pattern with larger design and cut out some of the focal points and use as Wallies.

Answer 9

You could use "eye hooks" of whatever size you need, then drill holes in the ceiling (or as close to the ceiling as possible); use curtain rods or wooden dowels and draperies with a rod pocket. When your ready to leave all you have to do is patch the holes, put a little paint over it and your done!

Answer 10

This is a website that explains how to put light weight fabrics up with no nailing or pinning - it is with startch - sounds like it would work, i have never tried
http://www.rentaldecorating.com/quick_fix_fabric_on_walls.htm