free plans  home    gallery
 projects    philosophy    faq









million wall free plans: how to make a
Million Wall
Basic Description

watch the
animated intro
We hear about a 'million' all of the time: a million people, a million dollars, a million years etc. It's difficult, though, to get a handle on the concept of a million. This fun project addresses the issue and simultaneously transforms your wall into a conversation piece. You simply paste 100 sheets of paper in a grid pattern over a large painted square area of your wall. Each of the sheets contains 10,000 dots (from the file included below) and the whole wall yields the million dots right in front of you to ponder. Read on for all the details; the plan itself is free!


step:             5    



Once the paint is thoroughly dry, we are ready to paste the sheets into place. Before you begin pasting, however, you need to mark out the location of the sheets in the square you just painted. You cannot paste a row of sheets and then move over the gutter dimension and paste the next row: if you are off by even the smallest amount, the errors will add up and by the time you reach the tenth row, there will either be too large or too small a border. You need to measure and mark for all 100 sheets before pasting a single sheet. Note that making the marks by snapping a chalk line is not recommended because the chalk will mix with the wallpaper paste and change its color.
did you know?
Once the paint is thoroughly dry, we are ready to paste the sheets into place. Before you begin pasting, however, you need to mark out the location of the sheets in the square you just painted. You cannot paste a row of sheets and then move over the gutter dimension and paste the next row: if you are off by even the smallest amount, the errors will add up and by the time you reach the tenth row, there will either be too large or too small a border. You need to measure and mark for all 100 sheets before pasting a single sheet. Note that making the marks by snapping a chalk line is not recommended because the chalk will mix with the wallpaper paste and change its color.
We used a pencil and a measuring tape to mark the corner locations of of each sheet. As we progressed through this marking step, we constantly checked our progress by measuring the distance between our mark and with the other edges of the painted square - this allows you to minimize any accumulation of measurement errors.
wiseGEEK
completely free!
clear answers to common questions

Letter Paper

10 sheets x 8 1/2" 85"
9 gutters x 1/2" 4 1/2"
left (and top) border x 1/2" 1/2"
right (and bottom) border x 1/2" 1/2"
total (for height and width of square) 90 1/2" or 7' 6 1/2"

A4 Paper

10 sheets x 210mm 2100mm
9 gutters x 13mm 117mm
left (and top) border x 13mm 13mm
right (and bottom) border x 13mm 13mm
total (for height and width of square) 2243mm

Once the locations are properly marked, you can begin to paste the sheets. It is best to keep the masking tape in place during this step. We found it easiest to apply the wallpaper paste to small sections of the wall and placing the sheets on top of it. Then we brushed additional paste on top of the paper to saturate the paper and guarantee good adhesion. This technique provides an interesting matte finish because the paste doesn't dry completely clear. If you are not interested in a matte look, you can apply paste to the back of the sheets and apply them to unpasted walls, but this is much more difficult. You can use a wallpaper brush to remove any wrinkles or bubbles in the paper. We noticed that some small wrinkles that could not be brushed away tightened up and disappeared during the drying process.
Optional: When the wallpaper paste is completely dry (per the paste manufacturer's directions), you can coat everything with polyurethane: this will seal the surface and will make it easier to clean. Most retailers offer matte, satin and gloss polyurethanes so you can choose the finish you prefer.
Once everything is dry, you can carefully remove the masking tape: it may help to run a hobby or utility knife along the edge to make sure that paint is not lifted off with the tape. We recommend that you do this slowly and methodically.
the printed sheets pasted on the painted surface before the masking tape is removed


◄ step 4   —   review ►



free plans © 2000-2008
terms   privacy policy
 home    gallery
 projects    philosophy    faq