DIY-Phobe
 May 22nd, 2007
Advantages:
Effective, cheap, easy to use and removable
Disadvantages:
None !
Recommendable:
Yes
Detailed rating:
Value for Money
Performance
more
  richardsonjones
About me:
Hi guys, I'm 24 & live in Leicester, although I'm from Sunny (?) Wolverhampton originally. My fave t...
Member since:02.04.2004
Reviews:33
Members who trust:4
Review rated by 13 Ciao members on average: very helpful 
This review received a counterstatement by a party concerned
Read Comment
The title says it all really. I'm not artistic AT ALL, and, having had no sucessful experience at all of DIY work, am a little bit nervous of paints, brushes, rollers and the like. But my husband and I have been living on borrowed time since we bought what must be the most beige house in the world 18 months ago. EVERY room is like a shrine to the shade magnolia, and to be honest it was getting me down. So, after 18 months of a colourless drab existence, I finally bit the bullett and announced that I wanted to decorate - starting with our bedroom. Knowing my own limitations, however, we agreed on a 'feature wall'. I had visions of big bold flock printed wallpaper dominating the room - very 'Good Housekeeping' - but was put off wallpaper by everyone I spoke to. "Once you paper you'll never be able to have unpapered walls again" lamented my mother, while staring at her own, slightly suspect looking walls. "It's not easy papering" added my stepdad. So that was enough to put a novice like me off.
But without paper, what options did we have left?? A simple colour washed wall? Not adventurous enough. Borders?? Stencilling??? Please, this
is 2007 not 1987. And then I stumbled upon Stickyups. Designs
These ingenious stickers (or decals as they're known in the trade) come in a variety of designs, ranging from animals, numbers and stars for kids bedrooms, to flock, paisley and floral patterns for lounges. The size of the decals varies according to the design and there are a variety of colours to choose from. You can view all of these on their website - www.stickyups.com. Suitability
The website claims that they are durable and long lasting (approx 7 years!), but also temporary. This not only gives you freedom to change the look of your room as often as you like, but also peace of mind that if it all goes horribly wrong, you've not got to move house. What's more, they claimed to be easy and quick to apply, enabling you to transfer any room you like in minutes. The stickers apparently work best on even surfaces, so are no good if you've got wood chip or wood paneling and are not recommended for use over wallpaper (sorry Mum). Other than that, they're pretty limitless and can be used on walls, windows or floors.
As they were priced less than a single roll of wallpaper for enough to decorate a whole wall, we decided to give it a go. Ordering & Delivery
The ordering process was straightforward enough - select your design and colour, drop them in your basket and pay by paypal, credit card or echeck. Each pack of decals cost £29.99. We chose the 'blossom' decals, shich are shown on the picture above, and included 12 branches. (8 branches are shown on the picture above). Postage and packing is an additional £4.50 by Royal Mail Recorded Delivery to any UK address. A signature is, of course, required on delivery. I placed my online order on a Saturday, and after receiving a confirmation email on the Monday morning, the package was delivered the following Wednesday - well within the estimated 5 day delivery time.
Application The stickers arrived on 3 sheets, each with 4 branches on. The package also thankfully included very clear instructions. (My only small criticism was that there was no diagram showing how best to put the branches together if you wanted to achieve the look shown on the photo above, although it is pretty easy to figure out if you print off and study the picture from the website.)
I'm glad to report that you don't need any fancy tools to apply the stickys - just scissors, a credit card or ruler, some masking tape and a clean, dry wall is all that's required, then you follow the 5 simple steps: 1. Cut roughly around the designs and assemble them on the surface you want to decorate. (We used a tiny bit of masking tape to secure the stickers in place on the wall so we could both stand back and guage whether our chosen locations would be suitable.)
2. Run a credit card, ruler or other hard surface over the rear of the stickers, thereby 'activating the the bond between the StickyUp and the clear transfer tape'. Exciting. 3. Peel away the paper backing, leaving the stickers attached to the clear transfer tape. Press the stickers onto the surface you're decorating and smooth down.
4. Run your card or ruler over the sticker, pressing it onto the wall. Slowly peel away the transfer tape, leaving your sticker firmly attached to the wall. Stand back and admire your artwork. Obviously, it was the final stage that worried me the most. What if the decals tore? What if they didn't stick? What if I pulled half the paintwork on the wall away with the sticky clear backing???? Thankfully none of that happened, and the whole event was hiccup-free. The whole process took about an hour (most of which was trying different designs on the wall before applying them). In fact, by the time I got to the fourth or fifth branch, I was positively enjoying my DIY experience and feeling arty enough to feature on Changing Rooms.
Finished Product Once on the walls the decals look like high gloss paintwork, and are incredibly effective. Our bedroom looks like a feature in Better Homes magazine, and I simply couldn't be more impressed. Best of all, it looks truly professional and expensive!! Our bedroom has become the first room I want to show to guests, all of whom love it and want to know where they can buy their own, and I get to wake up every morning feeling like I've spent the night in an expensive hotel!
Conclusion So would I recommend these stickers?? Well if you're looking for a quick, cheap, simple but effective way to decorate any room in your home, then I would without hesitation. Definitely not chintzy, suitable for even the most nervous of decorators, and with a design to suit any taste, you simply can't go wrong.
Read more on this product
Products you might be interested in
|
|
This product has not yet been reviewed.
23.05.2007 16:42
I'd not heard of these before so this was interesting to read. An excellent idea for the non-DIY'ers amogst ys! x
22.05.2007 14:18
Great review! Liz :-)
22.05.2007 11:25
Nice review. Foxy