debunk: would be too expensive, plant fiber is orders of magnitude cheaper.
Another debunk: human skin wallpaper would be irregularly shaped, so it wouldn’t have “corners” to write names and dates under. Also, it would be a lot more than one victim per wall. Also also, I’m pretty sure it would look profoundly weird and not like normal wallpaper at all.
Nice foreshadowing with the bit about peeling a sunburn, though.
It would look like leather, except that cowhides are big enough to cut into reasonably large rectangular panels and human skins aren’t.
(On a related note, one way you can tell a leather sofa is high-quality is by checking the back: if it’s made of several stitched-together strips, that’s good. If it’s one big piece, they cheaped out and used vinyl 'cause cows aren’t that big.)
If you already have some spare skin you can at least use it for somethimg. You wouldn’t eat that anyway, and mom will be happy for you remodeled the kitchen!
