Saturday, August 11, 2012

Ikat Stencilled Wall

So I had just stencilled our foyer wall a few months ago. I made a homemade trellis stencil and used my Folk Art craft paint in the color champagne. It gave the wall a nice shimmer, making it look silver in some lights and gold in others. The background paint is Benjamin Moore Revere Pewter. I loved the way my stencilled wall turned out, but it needed more punch!


Then I saw this stencilled wall on this blog http://www.ourfifthhouse.com/p/house-tour.html:


I needed to have it, too!!!! She had bought her stencil, but I resolved to go the cheap route! Yay for cheap! I wanted to just make a homemade one. This was ALSO so I could get started right away! Yay for instant gratification!!

So I found this blog http://bread-n-chocolate.blogspot.com/2011/07/ikat-and-so-can-you.html, and she showed how she made her homemade ikat stencil. Woo-hoo! Here's her stencil:


So I determined to do the same thing: get a piece of 8 1/2" x 11" paper and fold in half and try to freehand copy her design as best as I could:



I used my trusty Fiskars sharp scissors to cut this. The sharp points were ideal for cutting out the hard-to-reach places. Then I traced my cut-out onto a piece of cardboard:



I then cut out the cardboard. This is sturdier to use for a stencil than a flimsy piece of paper.

Then I proceeded to paint the top of the wall (I was going to do chair rail and moulding on the bottom like the inspiration pic). I used ACE Royal paint in High Hiding White (eggshell finish). I didn't prime before. It took me three coats to cover the old paint. (I left a command hook in the middle and didn't paint under it since I'm just going to hang my painting back over it anyway.)


Then I positioned my stencil at the top middle of the wall (this is important so the wall will look symmetrical) and filled in with my round sponge brush and Liquitex Mars Black paint. This is just what I had on hand. Then I proceeded to finish the first row. Then I did row two (scattering the spacing so they weren't directly under each other), and so on and so forth.



Hubby's reaction? "It looks like a transformer autobot." He's kind of right:


Progress is made on the wall:







The bottom half of the wall painted with primer (Kilz):


Then we installed a chair rail and painted one coat of semi-gloss paint on the bottom part of the wall:


Then I did another coat of semi-gloss paint (ACE Royal High Hiding White):


Then we installed picture frame moulding. I spaced 3" from each edge. I still have to caulk and paint one more coat of semi-gloss on the bottom.



Here it is all done:




Then I added back in the deco foyer table:



Hubby doesn't like that the moulding is covered up now. Maybe this table will see a little move in its future?

2 comments:

  1. Looks beautiful! I'm interested that you used cardboard to make the stencil - did it hold up well?

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  2. Hi, thanks for the compliment! The cardboard looks a little worse for wear, haha!! It got kind of soggy. I guess a plastic stencil would've been better! But it made it through the project. :)

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