I primed all of the walls and notice that I also primed the floors in a similar color to the flooring covers chosen. This helps to hide any raw wood or white primer from showing through the flooring planks.
I went ahead and painted the ceilings as well. It is always best to do it all now before the wallpaper and flooring go on.
I installed the staircase back. This kitchen is a little tricky to wallpaper because of this awkward staircase back that creates one of its walls. Depending on your chosen finish, you might be able to stain or paint this staircase back in a complimentary color to the rest of the walls. This will prevent you from having to wallpaper it. In this case, wallpapering it to match will look best since the white trim color will not look nice on the entire staircase back and will clash too much with the chosen wallpaper print.
I installed the vinyl oak flooring in the living room. Even though this flooring has a sticky back, you should always reinforce it by applying tacky glue anyways. Stagger the floor joints so it looks like real hardwood planks.
I made a threshold for the doorway since this particular doorway does not have a door to it. I just cut one of the vinyl flooring strips in half, the long way, so it fit in the door opening. The threshold will separate the wood flooring from the tile flooring in the kitchen nicely.
Notice that I primed the kitchen floor black because this flooring is vinyl black tile.
Now the hard part, the wallpapering of the staircase back. Like I mentioned earlier, this particular wallpaper print and the painted white trim, would not allow for the staircase back to be finished in any other way but wallpapering it to match the rest of the walls. This can be very difficult.
Because the wallpaper has a border, there is only one way to apply wallpaper to this staircase back. You must wallpaper the right wall first, up the edge of the staircase back. Making a paper template first will make the job easier. That way you just cut your wallpaper using the template and you will get a perfect cut. You then have to wallpaper the front of the staircase back and you have to fold it around to the left wall of the staircase. The only way to do that is by cutting a slit where the wall breaks so the wallpaper can wrap around. You then have to wallpaper the front wall, where the window is and finally the left side wall of the staircase. Again, you make a paper template of the wall shape to help with your cut.
You have two problems you will run into. The border will not match up with the rest of the walls on the front side of the staircase back. This is because the slanted wall is longer than the rest of the walls. It is not directly noticeable and it looks like it was meant to be that way once done, but keep it in mind. You might want to not use a bordered wallpaper for this particular room if it's something that bothers you.
Then you have the issue with the wallpaper on the left side wall of the staircase. You have to cut the wallpaper right up to the front edge of this wall and that will make the joint visible if your wallpaper has a white backing and is thick, which is what this particular wallpaper I'm using is.
Always be careful when you buy miniature wallpaper. A lot of online stores are just printing wallpaper from a printer and this is not good. White backed wallpaper will make any patch visible because you can see the white edge when it overlaps itself. Also, paper that is thick like cardstock, which is what a lot of miniature stores print on, is bad. Cardstock is way too thick and difficult to wrap around walls like bays or to fit neatly into corners for a crisp defined look. It also does not patch correctly because it's just too thick to lay down flat against itself.
It was difficult to get this left wall edge to lay flat. It is not very noticeable at all. Do not rub your edge flat too much, you can smudge the wallpaper ink. Handle it gently and carefully and avoid using your fingers. I have a very tiny rolling pin to flatten edges with. Flatten it down in intervals as the glue dries. That's the best way to make sure it remains down. It will not go down all at once. It tends to stay down the stickier and dryer the glue becomes.
