Our kid cave has been in desperate need of a refresh. After thinking about it for some time I decided that I wanted to do an accent wall. My first thought was wallpaper. I mean, that's the easy choice. So I started researching various ideas. I happened upon the herringbone pattern on pinterest and absolutely loved it. I could have purchased a stencil that would have helped me achieve these results, but no (hand to forehead). Not me!
The more I thought about it, I was like "Tawanda, you can totally do this yourself!" I researched some videos on how to do it myself and somehow got confident enough to make the decision to go for it.
I first had to put a fresh coat of white paint on the wall. And, since I wanted this to be MY project I decided to try to help myself by purchasing the TOURACE Paint Roller.
This product only got 3 out of 5 stars on Amazon but I decided to give it a try anyway. Its suppose to provide an easy, mess free painting option and I must say, it did. The wall I painted was very large which is ideal for this project. You simply poor your paint inside of the paint roller, reseal the cap and paint away. The only downside with this product is the clean up. In order to clean the roller you have to remove the cap and flush the inside with warm water until its clean. This process takes a LONG time! But, if you have a fairly large paint job then its definitely worth it.
After letting the paint dry over night the next step was to prep the wall for the design. For this, I enlisted the help of David Johnson. We used 3 inch painters tape and the extender tool that came with the paint roller. I showed David the picture I was using for inspiration and he looked at me like I was crazy. "You want the lines to be that short? That's going to take you a long time." he said. I thought about it and was like "Yea, you're right." So we opted for more space in between each line of tape.
Next, I used a piece of cardboard and pencil to draw the lines. Yes, I drew each line by hand. David adjusted the piece of cardboard so that I was able to create pretty much the same angle for each line. It took a while but not as long as it would have taken if I had opted for the smaller lines like my inspiration pic.
Once all the lines were drawn it was time to trace over my penciled lines in black paint. I used a foam brush with a straight edge to do the tracing. You guys! I had no idea how difficult this was going to be. Not only was tracing the lines straight a challenge but keeping the same weight on the brush as I traced the line was equally as difficult. I was so frustrated initially. Finally I got to the point where I accepted the fact that imperfection was going to need to be a part of the design.
When I was finally finished I can't tell you how accomplished I felt. I contemplated going back with the white paint to try and clean up some of my lines but David convinced me to leave it as it was. "It looks great baby!" That was enough for me. So, I stood and watched him remove the tape to reveal the full design.
So that's it guys! My very first DIY accent wall. Not too bad. I'm excited to get this wall finished up as the boys get ready to start 4th grade and pre-K virtually. May plan is for us to use this space for their lessons. I have a long desk being built that will be mounted to the wall along with some chairs that I've ordered.
The color palette is simple as you can see. Black, white and red. The fun kid cave sign is from Hobby Lobby. I also brought this fun polka-doted rug into the room as well. I'm mixing all kinds of prints just to keep it fun. The big joe bean bag chairs will definitely stay and the new giant pouf is from a local store in our city but I found a similar one here.
My hope is to have the room complete by the end of the first week of school. Got lots of work to do but yall know I'm up for it!
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