This is old news, but I didn’t want to forget to show you what my mom and I did in her living room! You all remember last spring when Nick and my little bro, Tim, tore apart the slat and lathe walls and put in new drywall. Well my mom painted the whole room beige (not MY first choice, but it’s not my house) and I convinced her to do a little something special on one wall as a bit of an accent wall. Here’s the before:
She liked what I did in my kitchen with the tone-on-tone swirls, using flat wall paint and high gloss for the effect. So we ran with that! We used this as a stencil… idea borrowed from this website.
We pretty much went to town tracing lightly with a pencil!
At one point, things weren’t lining up perfectly, and instead of hauling out a big ol’ level and trying to get the stupid bubble in the center… Mom just took off her wedding ring and tied it to a string. I would have NEVER thought of this. I literally would have driven to the hardware store and bought a laser level before I came up with that. It totally worked though and gave us perfectly level vertical lines to follow!
The end result gave her a very subtle texturey design on the wall! It shows up more, depending on the time of day and amount of light. It’s so soft and subtle! And SO classy! The lighting in this photo wasn’t ideal, but if you look closely, you can see it!!
It brings a special sort of glitter to the room! And makes up for the fact that the room is otherwise… beige.
She did most of the work… I just helped get her started and then tended to my babes and watched her labor. It looks nice, huh?
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Oh I LOVE this! I’m not one for loud colors or patterns on walls, and they are a latte color, and this would be the PERFECT solution to the monotony of the color… and, I love subtlety.
Now to get my sister down here to help me!!!
Oooh, I love that effect..very pretty!
I’ve loved this effect ever since I saw the pics of your kitchen. So classy! And I LOVE how she put the pictures around the thermostat. That’s a super clever way to hide that little guy. Love it all!
oh! and we used 1/2 inch brushes.
Renee, you SHOULD!! it’s fun! my mom’s wall only needed one coat, but on my kitchen wall i had to do 3 coats because i stupidly used a yellow pencil on a dark wall. but if you’re smart about your pencil color, you should only need to do one coat.
i recommend doing one row at a time… either horizontal or vertical, and making your way across the room (or down the room). if you’re going to do horizontal rows, start at the top and work down, because the top row will be a lot more visible than the bottom row, so you want to make sure things line up perfectly along the ceiling. it doesn’t matter as much along the floorboard. 🙂 good luck!! send pics!
I really want to do this my house! What size brush did you use when painting them and how many coats did you apply? Did you start in the corner and work across or work down? Does it really matter? Thanks for the info!
Karen, when i painted the swirls on my kitchen wall, i used a yellow colored pencil (on those dark teal walls!!)… which was SO stupid! I had to paint the swirls about 3 coats before it covered it all the way. but on my mom’s walls, we used a regular pencil (mechanical so it would be a tiny line) and drew lightly and it covered up just fine with the first coat of glossy paint. basically, you want to choose a pencil that’s CLOSE to the wall color, but not so close that you can’t see it very well. 🙂 good luck! Send us pics when you’re done!!
I have seen that done before. I’d like to do that on a few walls in my house. Any trouble covering up the pencil?