Thibaut inspired stenciled wall

Horray! My stenciled wall is finally DONE! It took a lot longer than expected, mostly because I had to start and stop along the way as real life often interferes with my projects:) Although my family often thinks it's the other way around! Te-he! Anyways, if you recall back when I posted about my ideas for our Guest Bedroom/Craft Room re-do, I was inspired by this amazing image I came across on Pinterest and created a mood board based on this gorgeous tone on tone zebra print wallpaper from Thibaut.

via Knight Moves via Thibaut Wallpaper & Fabrics

{My Mood Board for a craft space that also has to double as our Guest Bedroom.}

I always knew that I wanted to do a feature wall behind the bed, but I just couldn't decide what exactly to do on that wall. After seeing the Thibaut wallpaper image, I suddenly remembered this random stencil that I had picked up at Hobby Lobby about 2 years ago and a light bulb went off. Ding! Ding!

The stencil is made by Stencil Ease and normally costs $14.99, but I never buy anything from Hobby Lobby at full price! It was only $8.99 after my 40% off coupon. Way better than the hundreds of dollars it would have cost me to wallpaper. The pattern isn't exactly like the Thibault wallpaper as the scale is smaller and the pattern has more of a striped effect instead of an organic flow ,but I thought I would give it a go and see how it turned out. So I set to work and picked out my paint color, SW6148 Wool Skein by Sherwin Williams and painted the entire room this color in a satin finish.

For the stencil color, I just mixed in one part of the Wool Skein with about 4 parts of Sherwin Williams white un-tinted satin paint. (I just bought the sample pot un-tinted for about $6. I knew I wouldn't use the whole quart, so I figured it would be more cost effective to buy it un-tinted, and I can use the leftovers on another project.)

And I couldn't be more happier with the final result!!

I'll show you the entire wall when I reveal the room! I know, I know, you'll just have to wait!!

(I couldn't help but post these photos as my little model came running in as I was snapping the pics. He never can resist jumping right in front of the camera! Such a ham.)

The wall stenciling is pretty easy and self explanatory, and there are hundreds of tutorials out there, so I thought I wold just share a few tips I learned along the way while using this particular stencil.

1. The directions on the stencil stated to use a roller, sponge or rag to apply the paint. I used neither, but instead chose a stencil brush. I wanted a soft effect with no hard paint lines so the end result would look more flawless and even, like wallpaper, so I thought the brush would be my best choice. I used the largest brush from Martha Stewart Crafts stencil brush set. It worked OK, but next time I would invest in a higher quality brush made specifically for wall stencils, as I found the bristles kept falling out.

2. I also used Krylon Easy tack re-positionable adhesive to hold the stencil on the wall. It worked beautifully, and I recommend you re-spray the back every so often to ensure a good seal and prevent too much paint from bleeding through. Make sure you spray outside or in the garage on a drop cloth as the surrounding surface does get sticky!!

3. VERY important!! Make sure to use a level to position the stencil the first time so it is STRAIGHT (as per the directions on the stencil) but I also found it helpful to periodically check my alignment again with the level to make sure my stencil was still straight. Because this stencil has such a linear pattern to it, you would really notice if it starts to tilt to one side, especially when it buts up with the corners of the wall. There are handy markers on the corners of the stencil, and before you remove it from the wall, make sure you don't forget to use your pencil to draw little dots where the markers are,so you can re-position it correctly. Of coarse I forgot to do this on more than one occasion and there were a few profanities leaked;)

4. Keep LOTS of paper towels on hand! I used a towel to blot my brush every time before I applied the paint, to avoid it seeping through.

And if I did get a spot where too much paint was applied, I just blotted the wall with a clean paper towel after removing the stencil.

Periodically blotting the stencil after removing it from the wall in order to remove excess paint is a good idea too. I placed it face up on my drop cloth and pressed the top with a paper towel. This way the drop cloth absorbed the excess paint on the sticky side of the stencil, and you don't have to worry about the paper towel sticking to the adhesive. The only problem that I had (and i'm sure you dog owners can relate) is dog hair kept getting stuck to my stencil! I really don't know how....the dog doesn't go in this room or lay on the drop cloths. She just manages to get hair everywhere, no matter how hard I clean! Ugh. Nothing more frustrating than picking dog hair out of the paint on your walls.

5. And lastly, when doing the corners, make sure you put a double row of tape on the edges. I only put one row and had to go back and re-paint where I had accidentally stenciled too far. It's a bit tricky trying to stipple the corners! It will save you time in the long run.

The hard work definitely paid off, and it was a pretty painless first go at stenciling. I can't wait to finish up the rest of the room now!! I've got some faux roman blinds to sew, curtains to hang and shelves to stain. And I'm on the hunt for a cheap DIY glass top trestle table. At least I have a couple of good supervisors to keep me in line.....