80 Basement Progress: My Fairytale Room Part 2 and How to Stencil a Wall!

Oh my goodness.  I did it.  I stenciled a wall.  A whole wall.  Now I feel like I can do anything.  Seriously, someone grab me a bungee cord and find a bridge.  Or an airplane and a parachute.  Maybe some running shoes and the entire United States map.  Have you ever stenciled an entire wall?  I know some of you have.   And how did you feel when you were done?  Amazing right?  Such a hard feeling to explain.   So let’s let the pictures do most of the explaining!

Remember here, when I shared my story of our new fairytale room?  When I last left you, it looked like this:

A perfect blank slate.  

I also shared my plans to create some visual interest with this Zamira allover stencil I found through Cutting Edge Stencils:

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First, I will say, we have NEVER stenciled a wall before.  So maybe we were a bit over ambitious…. that seems to be how we roll {literally} here.

When I got the stencil, it came with great instructions, which we did our best to follow to a T to make the entire process go smoother.   The first thing we noticed was the option to adhere the stencil to the wall with either painters tape or spray adhesive.  We weren’t thrilled about the idea of messing with sticky spray adhesive, so we started out with solely painters tape.  {Cutting Edge Stencils recommends Blue painters tape, all we had on hand was the green Frog tape, to me, same same}.

You will also notice that we also taped around the perimeter of the entire wall and used a stencil level.  This was to ensure that our stencil would be perfectly lined up across the large focal wall, and not become all wonky on us down the line.

For the color, since our trim is bright white, I just went with a straight non-tinted white flat paint from Glidden.  And to apply the paint, we used foam rollers and a small brush for the corners.

When it came to using the roller, we opted to use a paint tray, which allowed us to use very small amounts of paint, to the point that you could barely even see it on the roller itself.  We also kept a paper towel nearby for blotting off excess.

With the stencil all level and taped to the wall, I just started rolling!

 

Some things to notice.  Yes, I am wearing a jacket.  It’s always cool in our lower level even in the middle of July.  Why in the world do I look so tired?  We had just spent an entire day at the beach and put the kiddos to bed to work on the project…

After removing the stencil, things were looking pretty good!  And it was so easy to just line up and keep going!

Even though we did a test stencil on an old cardboard box, it still took us a couple of times getting used to the rolling/paint consistency.  There are a couple of areas that are a smidge lighter than others.  That is OK though.  A.  We will be adding furniture along most of the entire wall.  B.  I really like the non-perfectness of it all, gives it a chic look!

That's as far as we made it the first night.  I told you I was tired.  Plus, with all the setup and trying things out, it took us about an hour plus to get this far, so we were inching past 9:00 p.m. at this point.

The following evening, we were determined to finish up the wall.  We had a system in place, and attacked it again after the kiddos were down for sleep.

The other thing I want to mention is that the stencil itself is very flexible plastic, and it’s neat that you can just use a hairdryer to flatten it out a bit if it started to roll at all.  We did this only once throughout the whole process.

We also had some very minor seepage of paint behind the stencil the first night.  It was minimal, but I thought that maybe it would be best to give into the spray adhesive. 

We lightly sprayed the middle complicated cutout of the stencil, and still relied on the painters tape around the outer edges.  This definitely gave us a crisper edge when rolling on the stencil!

About an hour later….

Things were running quite smooth at this point.  The hubs and I would line up the stencil, I would put paint on the roller, he would roll, and we would peel off the stencil together and move to the next section.  We did our best to avoid placing the stencil directly over the wet paint.  Although the directions mention you can, we noticed that the painters tape would leave marks on the fresh paint.  Since the paint dried pretty quickly, we just worked back and forth between the driest areas.

We did most of the wall until we couldn’t avoid the corners and edges any longer.  We were a tad nervous for how those areas would go down, however, because the stencil is so flexible, it actually just wrapped around to the next wall or up onto the ceiling/down over the baseboard {all which were taped off}.

Here is where that small brush came into play.  We just used a paint brush from a craft store, with a slightly slanted edge.  It was perfect for getting into the edges and corners when the foam roller couldn't.

About four total hours later, we began removing tape!

There were a few spots where the paint had gone under the stencil or left "ugly" spots on the wall.  It was super easy to fix, I just used another craft brush with the original wall color to touch up any imperfections.

I will say, if you get up SUPER close and personal, you will see imperfections.  And being the super picky person I am, I thought I would be bothered, but they are so minimal, that I am not at all.  In fact, I was beyond pleased with how the whole thing turned out!  Especially when looking in from the doorway!

Ready to see the after pics?

I am IN LOVE.  Yep, totally madly in love.  It's absolutely fantastic!

I originally planned on doing the whole room, however,  I will say that one wall is enough for now.  For a beginner stenciler, it absolutely was a long, slow process and it wasn't the easiest thing we have done and I don't know that I would have succeeded with smiles if I hadn't had my husband there to help me along the way.  But come on!  It's better than wallpapering and a HUGE fraction of the cost, so all the hard work pays off BIG TIME in the end!

So what do you think?  Should I do the whole room?  I need a fantastic accent color in here, any suggestions for me?  Has anyone else been stenciling recently?  How did you feel upon finishing an entire wall?  Is there anyone out there who has been brave enough to take on a whole room?  Do tell!

Want to dive in and stencil something after seeing this post?  Well stay tuned because later today I am partnering up with Cutting Edge Stencils for a great giveaway!!