Dude, stencils are no joke. But I did it! I bit the bullet and ordered the stencil that John and I have been pining after for the past month (mentioned here a few weeks back). We loved the idea of adding some subtle tone on tone detailing above the chair rail in our office (we didn’t want anything with too much contrast since it’ll compete with the dark teal built-ins and the fun curtains in the nearby dining room). So we settled on a softer gray tone with a tiny pop of color (leftover grellow paint from the adjoining kitchen). At 54 honking dollars it was hardly a drop in the bucket, but let me tell you, this stencil is hardcore. First of all, it’s made of super durable plastic, so I don’t have to worry that it will rip or crease while I’m taping it, untaping it, and bending it manhandling it to get into the corner crevices (I’m pretty sure I would have trashed a thinner stencil after one wall, just because it’s kind of a more rigorous application process than I expected). And let’s just talk about how big it is. It’s over two feet tall and almost two feet wide, so it helps to make things go faster since you don’t have to reposition it every three seconds like you would with something smaller.
And yes, this is quite an evil face I’m making. No idea why. I remember saying something like “make sure I don’t look naked” when John snapped this, but had no idea I was giving off such an I’m-the-female-Hannibal-Lecter vibe.
Another way that I’m rationalizing my purchase is that we only spent $6.30 on cabinets for the built-ins and $27 to build a 13 foot counter, so maybe it’s time we splurged in the office. Haha. I also figure any type of wallpaper (even the cheap stuff at Lowe’s and Home Depot) would be way more than $54 for the entire room above the chair rail, so there ya go.
I’ve actually never done a giant repeating stencil like this on a wall (we did stencil the floor of our first house’s sunroom) so here’s where I’ll get to the keeping it real part: stenciling is haaard. I’m not gonna lie, my arms were cramping after about an hour and it took four and a half solid hours (from 8pm to twelve thirty in the morning) just to almost finish one wall (out of the four that I want to do). But in the spirit of sharing things real-time as we go, I couldn’t wait to share the in-progress madness. Here’s a close up:
And here’s one side of the wall that I almost completed (I still have to do those last 6″ above the chair rail). Oh but ignore the weird dark and light vertical shadows on the wall (couldn’t wait for the lighting to be better – too impatient and excited to share, haha).
As for my method, here’s a little breakdown of what seemed to work for me:
1. I prepped the room by clearing it and tossing a drop cloth over the desk so we wouldn’t get paint splatters on it.
2. I used Martha Stewart Craft Stencil Adhesive Spray from Michael’s (purchased with a 40% coupon of course) to spray the back of the stencil before taping it up on the wall with painters tape. This helped the middle parts of the stencil stay close to the wall and not bend out for a nice crisp line. I probably repositioned the stencil two or three times before re-spraying it (when I noticed it holding less firmly to the wall I just took it down and sprayed it and taped it back up for the next application). Oh and you’ll want to use a large piece of cardboard or drop cloth to spray the back of your stencil so you don’t get stick stuff all over the floor).
3. As for where to start, John held the stencil up in the top middle of the wall so we could center the pattern and work out from there in all directions.
4. I also used delicate surface frog tape for holding the stencil up at the top, bottom, and sides (we already had it on hand and I didn’t want to tear off fresh paint as I moved it around the room so it seemed to do the trick).
5. I used small foam craft brushes (also from Michael’s). They were basically dowels with flat foam tips.
6. As for how I loaded my little foam brushes, I just dipped them in the paint (more details on the paint colors later) and dabbed the brush around the lip of the plate to remove excess before tapping it against the wall to apply the stencil.
7. I always tapped the wall at a right angle with a not-to-gloppy foam brush for a nice clean edge (so the paint wouldn’t slip or drip behind the stencil and smear around).
8. If I feared that a little bit of paint somehow got behind the stencil, before repositioning it on the wall for the next application I would lay it on my drop cloth on the floor (face down) and wipe the back with a dry folded paper towel to remove the excess paint. Then I would respray my stencil adhesive and stick it back on the wall for the next application.
9. The way that the stencil is applied means that there are repeats. So you position it right over the last 3″ that you previously stenciled and work your way across the wall that way. I didn’t wait for the paint to dry before moving the stencil (that would have probably taken five million hours), so I just took my time applying the paint so nothing got behind the stencil and then matched up the stencil carefully for the repeat and continued on. Since there was no wet paint on the back of the stencil, it was fine to be pressed against the 3″ of wall that was already done, and it didn’t look any different than the non-overlapped part. I wonder if the application of paint was so thin that it was drying really quickly so it didn’t make a difference…
10. The corners were the hardest part. To get the stencil to lay flat against the wall in the corner so you can cram your brush into the small little stencil openings was sort of impossible to get perfect. But I did learn that this stencil is extreeeeemely forgiving (probably because it’s a more organic pattern than a regularly spaced geometric one, which would probably make any inconsistencies a lot more obvious). So when I didn’t quite get deep into all the corners, once it dried it was somehow not obvious at all (a stenciling miracle?). Of course I’m not exactly a corner expert because I’ve only attempted one of them, so as I go around the rest of the room maybe I’ll have more tips.
After about three hours I was here on the first wall:
And after 4.5 hours I had one wall almost all done (sorry for the terrible picture, I was sort of losing it at this point).
So although I wasn’t completely done with that wall, I decided that 12:31 am meant it was time to put the foam brush down and throw in the towel for the night. And do some finger stretching (I seriously had cramped up hand-claws).
Oh and as for the colors, here you go:
- Walls: Moonshine by Benjamin Moore (color matched to Olympic No-VOC paint in a satin finish)
- Main stencil color: I just asked the paint guys to give me a half-tint of the wall color (also color matched to Olympic no-VOC paint in a satin finish). This means they just add half as much tint to the white base as the original formula calls for, so you end up with a half-as-intense tone-on-tone effect.
- Grellow stencil flower accent color: Leftover wall paint from the kitchen, which is Sesame by Benjamin Moore (color matched to Olympic no-VOC paint in semi-gloss). You actually can’t tell the difference in finish unless the light hits it just right from the side and the grellow sort of looks iridescent, which is actually awesome. Yay for happy accidents.
I also made a video to hopefully help demonstrate the foam brush prepping and actual stenciling part of the process (including a quick demo on corner stenciling):
So that’s where I am with the stencil. One wall-above-the-chair-rail almost done, three more to go. I’m planning to tackle another 4+ hours tonight and hopefully can fit in one more session this week (my goal is to be done by Thursday or Friday, soreness permitting). It’s definitely one of those projects that you just need to force yourself to complete as fast as possible – because as soon as you start all you want is to get to the point where you can let out a huge sigh and say “so glad that’s over!”
But so far I have to admit that it’s totally worth the trouble. We’re loving the effect (it’s sort of like subtle modern wallpaper, not too in your face but not too tame and unnoticeable either). It’s sort of the perfect amount of “ooh, look at that” without being too competey and chaotic with the adjoined dining room. And John and I both have said the following sentence about ten times so far: “the pop of color totally makes the entire thing.” So might I recommend a splash of grellow (or any color you love actually) to take something that’s gray on gray to the next (still-kinda-subtle) level?
Ok, now I have to hear from you guys. Have you ever stenciled something, be it an accent wall, piece of furniture, or entire room? Do you have any secrets you’d like to share? How long did it take? Is four and a half hours for the top half of one 13 foot wall (with a big ol’ window in the middle) about right? I might just be moving at a turtle-like pace. Haha. Just too nervous about getting paint all down the back of my stencil if I go any faster. Anyway, hopefully I’ll be back with finished pictures (and maybe a bulging right bicept from dabbing away) by Thursday or Friday. Until then, picture me standing on a chair at 11pm wearing my inside out painting clothes and listening to shows on Hulu (I tried radio, but somehow hearing Community and Parks & Rec play in the background kept my spirits up a little more).
Psst- I’m over on BabyCenter chatting about my favorite kids clothing store and how I save money when it comes to shopping for Clara’s clothes & shoes. Did I mention that I snagged 47 cent shoes on my latest mission? Excited doesn’t even begin to describe it. Check it out here.
Maureen @ The Parkland Project says
Insane!!!!!! You have so much patience (but I bet it was/is wearing thin. Looks amazing! Matches my bedroom!
cindy says
All I can say is WOW!!! That really looks amazing and all of your hard work will pay off when its done. I wish I had the guts to do something that bold but I am chicken :(
Cristy @ DoubleKnotted says
Hmmm…I might try this on our interior doors to tie in colors from other rooms in the house…it looks GREAT on your wall, but I don’t think I have enough patience for that!
Joelle says
First, the stenciling looks great! I really wouldn’t have the patience for that! But we also have a chair rail in the dining room, and we have been dying to get some color in there (all white now). so maybe!
but question…how do you color match your paints? Do you just bring the swatch into a lowe’s and they match it, or how does that work? I like the benjamin moore paint colors, and we have 6 month old twins, so want to keep it as safe as possible. thanks!
YoungHouseLove says
Yup, we bring a swatch and they usually have the formula in the computer but if not they scan it. As for our choice of super safe paints, Olympic No-VOC paint is great because the colorants are VOC free too (some paints have VOC free base but the colorants add VOCs). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Simple Dwellings says
Wow- it looks amazing! All of your hard work is paying off, because it is coming out beautifully. I love the stencil design too! :)
Erin says
I had this ‘great’ idea to stencil a 20’ long living room wall when I was home on maternity leave with my 2nd kid. With the 1st kid, my husband was home with me for the full 12 weeks, so I had this false sense of how much “down time” one has while on maternity leave. What a mistake. I got about one stencil’s worth done each day since my baby wasn’t such a great napper. It took way longer than 12 weeks…….more like 24……and even then, I never finished the part behind the couch, just pushed the couch back into place and hoped no one would ever notice!!! I’ve gotten lots of compliments on it, so I’m glad I did it, but whew! I did dark-on-light stenciling, but I think I like the look of light-on-dark better. No way am I going back and redoing it at this point though… *wink*
Ronnie says
Love the stenciling job, but I couldn’t help notice Clara was carrying around Snuggle Puppy. My daughter LOVES that book. She’s 8 years old now and will still make me read it to her. So much fun :)
YoungHouseLove says
Aw so sweet! It’s a big favorite in our house too!
xo,
s
Melissa says
It looks amazing. Totally updated my idea of stencils on walls from that hearts/teddy bear/ivy border.
I am already plotting what I could stencil! Your blog is dangerous (because I know I’ll drive myself crazy doing this).
Nicole says
It looks so fresh and sophisticated! L-O-V-E IT! We’ve been wanting to try something very similar above our chair rail in the dining room :) Sherry, is it safe to paint with zero voc paint when you are pregnant? Thanks!!
YoungHouseLove says
I still wore a mask and opened windows/ran fans, but Olympic no-VOC is especially great because the colorants are VOC free too! Hope it helps!
xo,
s!
Carrie H. says
Have mercy! That is gorgeous!!
Jessica says
OMG, it looks AMAZING!
Brooke says
I’ve always associated stenciling with the Cabbage Patch Kid stencil that my mom put up as a border around my bedroom when I was in preschool (loved it!). This is so chic looking! Makes me want to completely repaint my dining room…
April Hickman says
One word could be used to describe this project – amazeballs!
Jen says
Yall never seem to disappoint on any project. I’ve had my share of stenciling around here with Martha Stewart’s new line of stencils and products from Michaels. (40% off of course!) I’ve used a circle flower-esque stencil in the front room because it was looking a little TOO masculine for my taste, I live here, too after all. I used MS’s metallic silver paint on our Eddie Bauer MERCER BLUE walls. The paint only show up when the curtains are opened and the light hits it. It’s amazing. It can be partially seen in this post.
http://jenandhermarine.blogspot.com/2011/09/weekend-recap.html
Oh, and my husband, the Marine saw your desk’s finished project and is now onto completing the upstairs office, YHL style. I am so stoked to finally get my office finished with an awesome built-in desk. Too bad half of it will be HAM radios and boy stuff, but still exciting. Thanks for the inspiration.
YoungHouseLove says
Ooh those curtains are so pretty! And I love that your hubby the Marine is building you a desk!
xo,
s
RachaelB says
While I was searching for fabrics to do a new nursery with, I stumbled across this one and it reminded me of your new stencil:
http://hawthornethreads.com/fabric/designer/dena_fishbein/taza/medallion_in_grey
YoungHouseLove says
Ooh pretty!!!
xo,
s
Dana says
WOW.THAT LOOKS AMAZING. Seriously. What patience and dedication. Look forward to the finished product. Thanks for the continued inspiration!
Lindsay says
Love it!! The design is beautiful and the colors are perfect!! Absolutely great!
Marian says
The stencil looks awesome! And you’re right. It’s the grellow that makes it all sexy. I haven’t stenciled, but I did go dumpster diving in my neighbor’s trash heap about 12 years ago for an old school overhead projector. It is amazing for doing a larger scale version of the kid of thing you are doing. I did a giant 24 inch running scroll design around the perimeter of my youngest daughter’s room based of a scrapbook accent. Very cool. I have also blown up and painted giant flowers on another daughter’s wall, like they were just falling from the sky. I highly recommend the overhead projector technique for doing any kind of major mural. It’s super handy.
Ashley Weiss says
Wow! I love it! I have been contemplating stenciling our “powder room” for a while now (in leiu of wallpaper) and am now convinced! Thankfully the room is the size of a closet, so maybe I won’t have to spend 12 hours dabbing :)
Erin says
Oh, amazing! Definitely like a subtle modern wallpaper. No evil face being made here…it looks gorgeous! Hope your hands are uncramped soon…. :)
Lizzie says
Ooooo I love how it turned out!
We just stenciled our kitchen as well, the corners and ceiling edges were definitely tricky. But I loved the end result: http://346living.com/2011/09/28/stencil-wall-complete/
YoungHouseLove says
Wow- that looks great!
xo,
s
Ly says
It looks fabulous, love the two-tone look! Just a quick question, I see you don’t remove your wedding rings when painting, do you ever get paint on your rings and if so how do you remove them?
YoungHouseLove says
I’m so weird about that. I never take them off. John doesn’t either. So I don’t really clean them either (since that would involve taking them off). But I will sort of rub an old toothbrush over my rings if I have paint of them to scrub it off. Seems to work! Also gardening with gloves on = sparkling rings. It’s my own version of ring cleaner. Maybe it’s because it gets steamy and hot in the gloves? Gross, but awesome. Haha.
xo,
s
Jessica says
This is really beautiful. I would love to do it in my room on just one wall. How well would you say it would work over texture? And where online did you buy it?
YoungHouseLove says
I’m not sure how it would work on a textured wall (ours is really flat). There’s a link to where we got it in the first sentence. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Jessica says
Ooops, I just saw where you got it, no need to answer that!
Kristen says
Looks amazing!! and there is no way I could ever do that… the patience, the detail… you’re awesome!
And, I noticed you might have a Snuggle Puppy fan! We love that book (do you have the Philadelphia Chickens CD? – the song is on there :) )
YoungHouseLove says
Oh man- must get that CD asap! Clara loves that book!
xo,
s
Laura says
Sherry, this looks wonderful! I totally understand your pain though… I just stenciled my bedroom 3 weeks ago. I used a large trellis pattern with a metallic silver paint and gray that was almost the same color as the silver, just not shiny. I am SO happy with how it turned out, but while I was doing it I was thinking “What the heck have I gotten myself into?!” You are right…the corners are the hardest part but like you, my stencil was also very forgiving. Even if you make a mistake, the overall look turns out wonderful! I love the stencil you are using and I’m totally loving the gray and yellow together. Keep up the good work, it looks gorgeous!
Katie G says
LOVE that!!
Leah says
Question..
I’ve seen foam rollers. small ones even. What do you think would happen if you had the tiny amount of paint on a sponge roller and rolled the light grey, then just dabbed the flowers?
I wish I had a stencil, I totally want to try that now. Maybe the roller would hold down the stencil pretty well too. Seems easy to mess up tho, if your roller was overloaded.
Do you have a painter’s tool? I can’t live w/o mine. Seems necessary to regulate the amount of paint~
YoungHouseLove says
I’ve seen other bloggers use a foam roller and it came out awesome! I’m just too scared so I’m following the directions from the stencil website exactly. Haha. As for a painter’s tool, don’t even know what that is. Better learn! Haha. I just dab my little foam brush around the plate like I did in the video to get rid of the excess paint…
xo,
s
Stacy says
Nice job! That looks fantastic!
Leah says
this is the tool:
http://www.google.com/search?q=painter%27s+tool&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#q=painter%27s+tool&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=hW7&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvns&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=TtqDToDEIYe3twe4hYzzAQ&ved=0CDIQrQQ&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=cdcc682324b983c7&biw=1280&bih=894
roller scraper, paint can opener, bang the paint lid back on, spread your mud, chip paint blobs out of corners, pry off molding… all sorts of uses. and only a few bucks ;)
can you tell I paint a lot? hehe. worth it’s weight in gold to me~
YoungHouseLove says
Haha, love it! Thanks for the tip!
xo,
s
Rachel says
Looks wonderful! I’m so jealous. In our area (Austin, Texas) most homes have textured walls, which would be an exceptional challenge to stencil and look nice. I despise textured walls. Harder to paint. Require more paint. More difficult to repair. And limited options for stenciling, striping, etc.
sarahbclark! says
i actually gasped when i saw how great it looked. i’ve never been a fan of stenciling (it brings to mind ducks and schoolhouses and other country-type things i’ve seen) but this is a whole new experience.
amy c says
It’s absolutely beautiful Sherry. All the blood, sweat and tears are worth it. Keep at it, you can do it!
Erinn says
The stenciled wall looks truly amazing. I love it – and a great story to tell. I’ve been wanting to stencil in our bathroom but I have been a little worried that I don’t have the patience.
P Courtney. says
Wow, having done some extensive stenciling myself I can fully appreciate how much effort has gone into your wall stencil painting.
Will check back to see how it’s progressing……
Janice says
It looks aaaahmazing!
Donita says
That looks amazing!!! I love that stencil and would love to do that in my sewing room. We have painted paneling though *in every room.* Stenciling paneling is HARD!!! YES I have stenciled before, 18 years ago. I stenciled grape vines and grape clusters around my living room, above a chair rail. It was SO HARD stenciling on the paneling, with the ridges. It looked great though. Your room looks so good, love the POP of color. :-)
Sabrina says
A week without internet access and look at what I miss! LOVE IT! I want that stencil so bad in my bedroom but every room in my house has paneling. boo!
Dawn says
When I saw the first pic of the stencil on the wall I said, “ooooh pretty!” It’s beautiful! And, I just wanted to mention, my kids have that book Clara was holding in the pic :) Love that one! It’s fun to ‘sing’ it to them, my, now 8 year old, loved it when she was little. And my 5 year old is enjoying it now :)
Kate says
wow, love it! Especially the small area you did in “grellow”. I saw a similar stenciling in the HGTV Urban Oasis apartmennt they just did in Chicago where it was a tone on tone stencil but with the wall in a matte finish and stencil in gloss and then the artist hand painted an accent on the edge of the stencil design. I have no ability to paint with a steady hand so your solution of choosing one part of the stencil is so much easier!
Valerie says
I had my eyes on this pattern lately, was wondering how it would look in a real space… thanks so much for the tips and tricks :)
Autumn says
I FINALLY finished my small stencil project! Check it out at http://autumnmaeblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/nightstand-re-fab-part-three.html Thanks for your tips, they really helped!!
YoungHouseLove says
Turned out awesome! Congrats!
xo,
s
susana says
very nice
I would like t ask you if you can use it several times, and how many
thanks
YoungHouseLove says
Oh yes, I imagine you can reuse a stencil as many times as you want, just wipe it down with mineral spirits to get the paint residue off between projects.
xo,
s
BobN says
I saw your post on Melaine’s Facebook page and join her in saying you’ve done a wonderful job.
What a great look. I have used Melanie Royals’ stencils for years. Royal Design Studio has a nice selection of instructional materials to help the first-timer. Her catalog of stencil designs is just breath-taking, so get a copy or explore the website.
Suggestion on working this big: you appear to be using a brush that’d work great for doing a pillow or small table top…you’re working on a wall, so get a wall-sized sponge. I like the turtle-shaped sponge from home improvement stores in the flooring dept for a pattern and wall this big; it can be trimmed to a shape to be comfortable in your hand. Practice with it on another surface…get up a good pace of loading the brush and then tapping off the excess before putting it on the wall. If it’s too heavy with paint — which you really don’t need to do when you’re stenciling — then you’re inviting the paint to run under the edges of the pattern. If anything, get almost all the paint off the sponge to the point that you’re essentially dry-brushing the design onto the wall.
Secondly, use a laser level to double check that you are staying on level…and have a plumb bob close by so you can double-check the verticality of the pattern — especially on a pattern this big!
Lastly, let the “hand of the artist” shine through…let some areas be a little different and varied. (If you are really OCD and think that every bit of it has to match, then you’re going to be a lot happier with wallpaper.) Let the little variations happen; enjoy the process; share it with a friend and just have fun. If there’s a little creepage under the edge of the stencil, you can clean it right away with a damp Q-tip. Also, letting a little of the basecoat color shimmer through adds to the sparkle and excitement of your finished walls, especially once you have the masking materials taken off and have re-hung the artwork!
Here’s one of my own stencil patterns…it’s little squares of tarnished gold leaf applied over a metallic copper wall. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2020469386138&set=a.2020469186133.111199.1076018829&type=1&theater
Now, go find a bigger sponge!
YoungHouseLove says
Wow- love the link! You did an awesome job! And in the good news department: no need for a bigger sponge because I’m dooooone! And it’s glorious! Haha. So excited to share the pics and all the details in about thirty minutes!
xo,
s
Tori says
This may be my favorite project that you guys have done so far. I LOVE this look!
Jen says
I just wanted to say that I think this is *beautiful* and worth all of the hard work! Though I can’t imagine how much your fingers and arms ache. Ouch.
kelly says
Sherry — You look very “Natalie Portman” a la Black Swan in that first picture. Awesome!
Kathy says
You might of said this already but where did you get your stencil? Looks amazing btw!
YoungHouseLove says
There’s a link to it in the first paragraph for ya. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Rupa says
Love that stencil effect you guys! The design is unique. I would love to try stenciling, but I wonder if there is any other use of the stencil once we are done with using it on the wall. Obviously we don’t want to use the same design everywhere in the house, be it on fabric, floor or wall. By the way, as I am writing this comment, I noticed the background of your blog (with your cute little logo), you can totally use that design to make a stencil.
Cheri Morgan says
I purchased an allover design from Royal Stencil and started it last night, used the spray adhesive but unfortunately did not get clean lines, but that particular part will be hidden by my dresser. I am going to attempt another part tonight and will make sure everything is sprayed well and will hold down with my fingers like you recommended. Thanks for the video!
YoungHouseLove says
Good luck!
xo,
s