• Denim is a heavy fabric, and you should use a staple gun to hang it.denim background image by Alison Bowden from Fotolia.com
  
  While painting, wallpapering and paneling are some of the most well-known wall cover options, another is using fabric. Fabrics allow you to choose from a variety of patterns, colors and textures that you could not otherwise achieve using more traditional methods. For maintenance, you simply need to vacuum your fabric walls like you would the floor. If you are thinking of installing fabric wall covers, there are several different techniques you can use.
  
  

Lightweight Fabrics

• If you want to cover your walls with a lightweight or delicate fabric like muslin, you can use liquid starch and a wallpaper brush for the application process. You can find both of these at a local hardware or home supply store. According to Mormon Chic, start by soaking a piece of your fabric in the liquid starch, and then gently wring it out. (See References 2) Position the fabric against the wall and smooth it down using the wallpaper brush. Soak more pieces of fabric and repeat the process until you cover the entire wall, making sure that you slightly overlap the edges of each piece as you apply them. If your fabric has a pattern, you will need to spend timing aligning each piece so its design matches up.
  
  

Heavy Fabrics

• Covering your walls with a heavy fabric like denim requires that you use staples as your adhesive component. Start by measuring and cutting sections of your fabric that will entirely cover your wall space, with some extra hanging over. For each wall, use a staple gun to fasten the top of the fabric sheet to the top of the wall, forming a row of staples right across the top near the ceiling. Then, smooth down the fabric, starting from left-to-right, and make a row of staples along the bottom of the wall. Cut off the extra fabric with scissors and use crown molding to hide the staples.
  
  

Pleating

• The pleated wall covering technique requires that you measure and cut sections of fabric that are two or three times wider than the wall space. According to HGTV, position a piece of fabric in place and staple the top corner. (See References 1) Make a vertical fold, or pleat, in the fabric, and staple it in place at the top. Then, continue the fold down to the bottom of the fabric and add another staple. Repeat the process until you reach the end of the wall and you will be left with several billowing pleats.
  
  

Shirring

• As with pleating, shirring requires that you use fabric pieces two to three times wider than the walls they will cover. Sew shirring tape, which you can find at most fabric and home supply stores, along the top and bottom of each piece of fabric. This tape has strings, which you can pull to bunch the fabric together. Do this for all of your pieces and then staple them in place. Alternatively, you can sew tabs along the top and bottom edges of your fabric pieces, feed rods through them and hang your wall coverings like giant curtains.