Tuesday 23 August 2011

The Stenciling is DONE!!!

Well...I'm happy to say...IT'S FINISHED!!!
Those of you who have been reading the BPPackages Facebook page (a BIG thanks to all of you who have "liked" it!!) know exactly what I mean!!

That mammoth project called stenciling.
Errr...is it still called stenciling if you didn't actually use real stenciling techniques?

As those of you who have been reading since the beginning already know, hubby and I have been working away at changing up our cave-like bedroom. Here is ONE of the TWO pictures I was actually smart enough to take before we started painting.
*banging forehead*


Get used to looking at this pic. I'm going to have to use it lots in future posts about our room.
Anyhow, it was painted a really dark brown with golden oak trim, doors and flooring, not to mention very dim lighting from a ginormous ceiling fan that felt like it was only about three feet higher than the bed. It was virtually impossible to see anything in the closet. Blech. It didn't take long for me to make a trip to the paint store...you can read about that process here.
That was five months ago.
But now I'm happy to announce that we're...wait for it...about halfway to completion!!
Yeehaw!


Here's a half-way-done picture from roughly the same angle.
We painted the walls Light French Grey by Behr and then I hand painted/stenciled/whatever it's called...the "headboard wall" with Deep Silver by Benjamin Moore.
You can see a little peek of the new white closet doors...but that's a post for another day.
Our bedroom is the only room we've really touched so far, so that's why you can still see the oak trim on the outside frame of the bedroom door. It all takes time!

After we painted the room grey-blue, it started feeling a wee bit "icy" to me, so I thought that adding a now wildly popular trellis pattern to the headboard wall might soften things up a bit. I really waffled between white and black, but then I thought that might be a bit too harsh and wondered if a cozy, warm charcoal
might be just the ticket. Turns out it was. I love it.

Here's how we made it happen...


I browsed around a lot on the Internet to find a pattern that I liked. It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that it was Jones Design Company who had the winning pattern! Have I ever mentioned how much I love that blog?! Patience is not my greatest virtue so I liked the fact that I could download the pattern right now and better yet, the fact that it was free appealed to my cheap frugal nature! If you are impatient and cheap frugal too, you can find the download here.

The size of the pattern changed a bit as a result of my printer running out of ink half way through. Yup.
So I had to fiddle around with it a bit when cutting out the pattern. As a result, I totally botched it up and had to resort to asking hubby for help with getting it right...which resulted in a larger pattern (fine by me...less painting!). As a result of that, my lines do not combine into one like Emily's do. But I'm still really happy with the overall result. After getting the pattern all sorted out, I traced it onto some white poster board and then experimented with several different brushes to see what I liked best. I highly recommend this!!


As you can see, it gave me something to practice painting on...which clearly I really needed!
I tried about four different brushes...you can see the different widths in this pic.
In the end, I decided a rounded brush worked best, since I didn't have to contort my body while I painted, which I did have to do with the flat tipped brushes.

(Did you notice? I painted my nails too...just for you!)
We made two stencils...one full pattern and one half pattern. I started in the farthest right hand corner above the bedroom door with the full pattern alternated with the half pattern and went along the ceiling. It may not have been the best point to start, but I wanted a less conspicuous place to get going since I knew most of it would be covered up by moulding anyhow.
You can see the process in this picture. Trace the pattern, then move it down about a half inch or so and trace again. Just keep going until you think you are going to lose your marbles.
Then take a little break and go at it again.


 I found it worked best if I moved the pattern down the wall, rather than working across the wall.
I don't know if using a level really helped anything other than to somewhat convince myself that I wasn't royally messing everything up. At any rate, I used this little level and lined up the stencil pattern with the traced out pattern above.


Then moved the level down to make sure the stencil was straight.
At some points, I just had to fudge a little to make it work.
Okay, in some places I had to fudge a LOT...put my pencil down and walk out of the room, deep breathe and once again ask myself what I ever did to feel I needed to punish myself this way.
Just sayin.


I alternated tracing and painting to keep myself sane from getting bored.
You can see here what I mean by a round tipped brush. It really does make the process much easier.


Just keep painting...just keep painting...painting, painting, painting...what do we do...we paint, paint, paint...oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, ohhhhhh!!!
(Can you hear Dory singing? Kay...so maybe Nemo is played a little too often around here..)
Keep painting on the inside of your traced lines.


Aaaannnndddd...the finished result!
I mentioned in a previous post that hubby wasn't at all convinced that he liked it. In fact, his first words were..."You said it was going to be subtle, Evie!" Errr....I thought grey was subtle. Compared to black.
Well, now he loves it. I knew he would.
 During the painting process, I wasn't so sure if I would love it though...I'm a big chicken and usually steer away from patterns. This was a big and very bold step for me...I sweated buckets over the decision to go ahead and do it or not..but I'm happy to say that I love it too. And really it's kinda like childbirth...the pain of the process is forgotten and now I just think about how much I like it and how it's going to be years before I ever repaint our room.


I couldn't get a straight on picture of the wall because I was trying my hardest not to get all the tools and furniture laying around into the picture. Our room is really rather small, so there weren't many places to stand without tripping on something.

Oh...see those sweet mouldings? Hubby's first attempt at crown moulding! I think he did a FAB job.
Thanks Honey...mwah! And a big, big thanks to my daddy-o for coaching and helping! I big, fat heart the chunky crown and baseboard. Yum.


And while I'm handing out thank-you's...
Thank you to my mom for watching the kiddies for countless hours while I painted...
thank you to Hubby for also watching kiddies during the hours Mom wasn't here...
and thank you to my kids for taking naps occasionally when neither my mom nor hubby were around...
and thank you to my producer...
and thank you to my fans...
without you, none of this would be possible...
*holding up my trophy and dabbing at tears*
*sniff*

I kid! I kid!

Now...onto the headboard and closet doors!! Stay tuned!!
If I'm very, very lucky they might be finished by the end of the week...

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36th Avenue





 


Design Dazzle

55 comments:

  1. Vikki (your fav SIL)23 August 2011 at 12:48

    great job Evie :)

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  2. You did a spectacular job!

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  3. Amazing! You have much more patience than I. Now that you've perfected this technique why don't you come paint my bedroom...and um, bring some Pad Thai!
    *wink*

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  4. I am in AWE! This is a work of art! All hand designed and hand painted. WOW!!!!!
    Yvonne

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  5. Holy WOW! You did that all by hand!! AMAZING! It looks so crisp and clean, you really did a great job! And I LOVE the "stencil" you chose! WOW!

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  6. Wow! What a statement that makes! Beautifully done.

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  7. It's fantastic the gray is the perfect color! <3 from Lisa @ sewgloried.blogspot.com

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  8. It looks fantastic!! And the new moulding really sets it off even more. I have gotten a bit stencil happy myself, and just finished one in my office/mom cave. I did one wall in my powder room the hand-painted way like you did, and you must be exhausted! A little wall about did me in! Well worth it though - great end result!

    www.EvolutionofStyleblog.blogspot.com

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  9. That looks AMAZING!! Great job!!

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  10. Wow! What a big project to tackle; you did a fantastic job!! Thanks for stopping by my blog!

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  11. Amazing job Evie!! I stenciled a wall in my craft room that was probably half the size of yours and I was pretty much going crazy by the end. I can only imagine how much time and patience that took. BUT, the end result is so fantastic! Thanks so much for linking up to The Creative Spark - love seeing you back!
    Jenn :)

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  12. Evie you have a new follower. :) I saw you over at the Creative Spark and after reading this post and seeing you hand painted the wall I said "She is crazy... and I love it!" Your cake adventures are just like mine and I just over all love your blog. Can't wait to see more.

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  13. Gigantic undertaking and it came out GORGEOUS! Thanks for linking to Wicked Awesome Wednesday!

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  14. this looks incredible Evie! I was thinking about stenciling a wall, but was not sure how it would come out, I think you just about convinced me! Cheers!

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  15. A lot of work, but my oh my what awesome results! I'm thinking about doing somethin a bit simpler in my daughter's room. Your post gave me a lot of good tips. I would have never thought to use a level...
    You've made a follower out of me!
    Best,
    Rikka J.
    Ricochet and Away!

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  16. Oh wow, this is absolutely stunning! SO much went into this, and the pay off is definitely worth it! Great job!

    I have a link party going on now, called Show & Share. I'd love to have you link this up!

    http://southernlovely.blogspot.com/2011/08/show-share-2.html

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  17. Thank YOU SO much for visiting my party...

    I shared your amazing wall on my FB page. WOW!

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  18. wow! that was fantastic!! i do not have the attention span to do something so grand!! :) Spectacular nonetheless!! :)

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  19. It looks fabulous! You must have the patience of a saint. Great job!

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  20. A truely STUNNING project and HUGE labor of love!!! :) Breath-taking :D

    Visiting from "Finding Fabulous" Linky Party tonight,
    ~Suzanne in NW Illinois

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  21. Amazing!!! I can't believe you hand-painted that! It looks so nice. It's hard to believe it's the same room you started out with...

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  22. This is AMAZING! What a job and what a wonderful job you did on it!! Wow~ so impressed!! Thanks so much for linking it up at FNF :)

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  23. WOW! You did an amazing job! I can't believe you hand stenciled that whole wall! AWESOME :)

    visiting from The Shabby Nest link party

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  24. This looks incredible! It looks like a stencil, but you handpainted it all! SO FABULOUS!
    Found you at Frugalicious Friday!
    http://www.releasemecreations.com

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  25. New follower here! OMG you truly have the patience of a saint! That is a huge wal and a lot of hand painting - so impressed. It looks beautfiul! You are my here! LOL!

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  26. All of the hard work really paid off because your walls look A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!! I love the colors you chose. Me and the color gray have been going round and round for a while because they all end up being too blue. Thanks to seeing how awesome your walls look, I am going to find a warm charcoal color to use in the room similar to what you have done!!

    Visiting from Flaunt it Friday.

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  27. WOW. What a great job. It came out amazing. I can only imagine how much work it was. The end result is stunning. I am your latest follower. I would love for you to stop by and say hi. Thanks. Looking forward to keeping up with your blog.

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  28. Beautiful! I have that same stencil "pinned" until I can find a place to use it in my home. :)

    **stopping by from Frugal Friday

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  29. LOVE THIS! I featured you on my Favorites of the Week! Sorry, meant to email you earlier to let you know. Congrats on an awesome project :)

    Erin @ How to Nest for Less

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  30. You are one patient person! It looks so good!

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  31. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this! I had already started toying with painting my office/guest bedroom gray and now I KNOW I'm going to do it gray and stenciled! Thanks for the inspiration! Steph theprojectspot.blogspot.com

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  32. Amazing! I cannot believe you did all of it by hand! So beautiful!

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  33. Holy cow. Seriously. There are very few words other than you are my painting and patience HERO! Amazing!

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  34. stenciling is crazy hard work! Trust me I know :) You did an amazing job and it was so worth it because it looks fabulous!!

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  35. Wow, that looks like A LOT of work - it turned out gorgeous though!

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  36. This looks amazing-your hand must be exhausted!! I'm your newest follower-stop over for a visit!

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  37. wow that looks amazing!! i can't believe you did it by hand. AMAZING!

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  38. Wow looks like that was a lot of work, but it looks great!

    Feel free to link up to my new Make Yourself Blog Hop!

    -Jamie
    For Love of Cupcakes

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  39. That's amazing!! Love, love, love it.

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  40. That is incredible. I can't get over your patience to do all this by hand. JUST WONDERFUL! Thanks for sharing with my newbie party.

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  41. Wow. I can't believe you did that by hand. I thought it was wallpaper. I was just at Home Depot yesterday looking at paint colors and the Light French Grey was one of the chips I brought home. I like how it looks in your bedroom.

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  42. This is awesome! I know you have to be exhausted! I don't think I'd have the patience, but what a great room now! Came over via Savvy Homemade link party.

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  43. Your hard work really paid off! It looks terrific!

    I hope that you will visit my lovers!

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  44. So much work...but so worth it. The room looks amazing. I love the color and the design. Have a great week. Bobbie

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  45. It looks fantastic. I'm so impressed with how you did it - low budget and with sooooo much patience.

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  46. wow!! this looks fantastic!! you have more patience than i do!! great job!

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  47. Hole Schamezel!!! What a job!! I am beyond impressed with your amazing job!! I would certainly not have enough patience and it would take me an old age to finish! It looks so cool! Well done!!

    Veronica
    www.tasselsandtwigs.blogspot.com

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  48. Wow! That it beautiful! You did an amazing job. I may reference this for any future highlight walls.

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  49. Very pretty. I admire these well done walls. I am a chicken when it comes to pattern, but I really do love this look.

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  50. You are way more patient than me. That is going to look so good. Thanks for joining WOW.

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  51. Wow! This stencil work is intense and FABULOUS! Well done! Thank you so much for linking up at Savvy HomeMade Monday!

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  52. Oh My Goodness....how much patience have you got?? Awesome job! Love it!

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  53. Stunning! Patience is right Rona (previous comment) :)

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