Tuesday, March 15, 2011

buh-bye red {1 of 3}

My painting project is done.  Finally.  It took me 6 days.  But it's done.  And I love it.  It was worth all the time and effort.  Would I do it again?  Uhm, probably not.  But did I mention I LOVE it?

This is what I started with.  A big red wall in the living room. (See more red in the house tour.)


I freshened up the wainscoting with some white paint, and then primed and put up a coat of white paint on the wall itself.  Better already, right?


This is what inspired my labor of love.  But at $50 for a stencil, I said, "Psssht!  I'll just make my own."  So I headed over to Hobby Lobby and picked up two packs of stencil blanks.  Each pack came with three sheets of 12" x 18" stencil paper; of course I needed 4 sheets, hence the two packs.  All I had to do was tape together the 4 sheets to get the size I needed.  Everything stencil related was on sale, so I spent under $6 for my homemade stencil, saving myself $44.  Woo hoo.


I saved the image on the left (below), enlarged it in Lightroom and reprinted it on 9 separate sheets, put it together like a puzzle, taped it, traced it onto my stencil paper, and then X-acto knifed it.  I stepped back to admire my very LARGE stencil.  Time to get a-painting.


I decided to work in layers to allow paint to dry and to make my job a little easier.  (Plus I only have one small foam roller, so I guess that kinda decided it for me, eh?)  I started with the dark tan color first (Valspar's Prarie Dance).


Then added the light tan (Valspar's Belle Grove Buff).


{Up close, you can see that the wall is textured.  It's the only wall in the house that's textured like that.  When looking at the wall as a whole, the new stencil pattern takes away from the texture, which is kind of nice.  I'm not a huge fan of the dated texture technique, and it really stood out when the wall was that ugly red, so the new texture camouflage is very welcomed.}


And then, finally, I added the last of the colors, a blueish/green (Valspar's April Thicket.)





And there you have it.  My stenciled feature wall in the living room.  Not bad for a day's 6 days worth of work, huh?  (I can't wait to get rid of that yellow in the hallway [and entry and dining room] - it totally clashes with the newly painted wall.)


Heck of change, right?  The room is so much brighter and a lot more fun to be in.


If I have to see all of my hubby's tv components on a daily basis, at least I now have a pretty wall behind them.  :)






21 comments:

  1. WOW! I'll say it again. WOW!!!!!!!!! I'm totally impressed with your work!

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  2. NO, REALLY - WOW!

    I too am impressed & since you don't know me, I'll just tell 'ya - that's not easy to do! :)

    You're gonna get some attention in blog land for this one girlie! :)
    Weeeeeell done!
    xoxoL~

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  3. Wow this turned out SO beautifully. Great job :o)

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  4. Awesome job! This looks beautiful!!!!!!

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  5. wow...amazing....great job!!!! Looks like a magazine girl!!!

    april

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  6. HOLY CRAP!!!!
    This is amazing.
    Seriously amazing.
    Where do you live? Can you come paint my house?
    Pretty please.

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  7. shut the front door! it looks seriously amazing~ love love~

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  8. Looks SO prefoessional! I am so impressed. kind of shocked that you did it all by yourself! great job!

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  9. That looks so fantastic!! Love it!

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  10. How cow!!! That is awesome! Never would have thought that was done with a DIY stencil.

    Thanks for stopping by my blog. I'm your newest follower :D

    Shelley
    www.westermanfam.blogspot.com

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  11. Thanks for all the love, ladies - I'm totally feeling it!

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  12. You did a fantastic job!! This looks fabulous! Love the colors!!

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  13. Um LOVE!! Can you explain to me how you got the lines perfect tho??

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  14. Hey, Melinda! My lines are far from perfect, but I did go in and touch up EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. (Aside from the few that I unintentionally missed!) Let me just tell you, it took FOREEEEEVER! But it was totally worth it since I'm a bit obsessive ;)

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  15. Absolutely beautiful! (My entire 1970s house has textured walls, I imagine touch ups took about as much time as the original painting, if not longer!) Totally worth it.

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  16. so very impressed with this! my husband and i just closed our on first house this weekend--this post is definitely giving me so much inspiration! absolutely love this!! just wow :)

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  17. Thanks, Katie! And congrats on the house! Enjoy every second of making it a home :)

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  18. Wow this is beautiful! I just discovered your blog, and I've enjoyed reading through your projects. :) Do you remember where you got the image for your stencil? I'm not sure I have the chops to make my own stencil and wanted to look into buying it.
    Thanks for sharing this pretty project! :)
    Jodie

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