Recently I was blessed and thankful to be able to visit my son and daughter-in-law in their very first home in Massachusetts. They have recently moved there while being stationed in Boston with the United States Coast Guard--SEMPER PARATUS!
Their first place is a town home rental and is very VANILLA! We wanted to jazz it up and make it fun for them and a memorable first place. Well, that's all I needed to hear! How do you get the biggest bang for your buck?? PAINT!!! Since the walls will have to be painted back their original white again upon moving, we opted to paint accent walls instead of the whole place--saving time and money.
Here is the before shot of the dining area. Cute and all but with a little paint, bright accessories and staging (my specialty! check out Ready 2 Stage Home Staging & Redesign HERE) it's gonna POP!
Here's how we began. the lovely ladies in the pic above are measuring for horizontal stripes--18 inches wide on this one wall--for a focal point. Using a Yaaaaadstick, (inside joke for the ladies in the pic) level and pencil, we measured down in 18 inch increments starting at the ceiling. (Why 18 inches you ask? Well, we saw a wall at Ikea that looked like what we wanted and we measured it! And wide stripes are less busy in my opinion.) We used the level to make a pencil line across the entire width of the wall.
Then using Frog Tape--the green stuff is best--perfectly crisp line!--we taped off each section that was to be painted gray. Keep in mind that your tape goes above the pencil line where you want the top of the gray stripe and below the pencil line at the bottom of your gray stripe. Keep those lines straight and try to use one continuous piece of tape if possible. Two people and four hands is helpful! We also used a Pampered Chef pan scraper thingy to make sure our tape had a good seal on the wall. It worked because our lines were beautiful!
Our next step is to begin the painting. I find it helpful to write with your pencil on the wall on the areas to be painted: PAINT HERE Just to keep from making a boo bo0!Use a nice full roller of paint and roll sideways to keep from pushing any paint up under your tape line. And two coats always gives the best finish--so don't scrimp!
After you have rolled your second coat (and while the paint is still wet!) begin slowly peeling off your tape to reveal those beautiful lines. Wad your tape up as you go to avoid getting it stuck to the wall....or the carpet.....or your clothes....!
Here's a shot of our two lovelies finishing up the wall. Two working together can get it completed in a snap!
And here is the finished product! We all love how the stripe is the perfect backdrop for the "starsby" mirror made by Uncle Mikey Neyman. And the gray is the perfect color to make those red accents "POP!"Cost breakdown for dining room:
Table: $5.00 yard sale find (And yes it is Ikea!!)
Chairs: $25 yard sale finds for 4 around the table and $10 for 2 extra at base thrift store!!
Paint: about $25 from Home Depot (Mickey's Shadow--Behr) we used it for 2 other projects also and still had some left!
Time spent together: PRICELESS!!!
NEXT POST BY ME: HOW DO YOU TURN AN UGLY BOOB LIGHT INTO A UPDATED DRUM FIXTURE FOR FREE!! (See light in above photos)
--Til next time
LORI
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