So, I definitely painted the walls in my bar to emulate this wallpaper that I’d been adoring.  I had shown you all my plans last week and I was surprised by the responses.  After all of your feedback, I decided to tackle the paint.  I thought, I could always wallpaper over the paint if I botch it.  I will say that I love the way it turned out, although it was really difficult and a huge pain.  Unless you’re doing plain walls with no trim, doorways, angles, or curves I have to honestly say that I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it.

Do I love how it looks?  Sure.  Do I think it looks as good as if I were to attempt wallpaper in the same space? Probably. Did it almost induce tears? Yes.

The project as a whole wasn’t terribly difficult, it just took a lot of patience.   I really got up-close and personal with some ScotchBlue™ Painter’s Tape and my Sherwin Williams paint in Uncertain Grey during the process, but I find all of that taping kind of cathartic.  It took a lot of little chunks of time, waiting for drying, repeated painting, etc. Aside from the tedious details and the waiting, the biggest issue was the uneven walls and the difficulty to get a regular pattern on an irregular surface.

The effect is textural and subtle.  I used a grey instead of the beige of the original wallpaper because I plan to paint my entryway navy blue and wanted a nice bridge between navy and the green tea color in our kitchen.  You can continue reading for the step by step on how I executed this feat!

I started by painting the entire room white.  I measured out ten inch segments and taped off the segments with ScotchBlue Painters Tape, making sure that every other stripe was the full ten inch width.  I started by painting every other stripe with my darker color and made a diagonal texture with a hair comb.  I went in the same downward direction on each of these stripes. I used a very ‘rigged’ triangle as a template that I made out of a yardstick because I wanted a 30 degree angle.  I’d recommend just buying a regular old triangle and doing a 45 degree.

Once all of the stripes in that one direction were complete and the paint was 100% dry, I removed the tape and re-taped, exposing the full 10 inches of the alternating white stripes.  I repeating the painting and combing action, but in the opposite direction. Then, once that paint was dry, I un-taped everything to reveal the pattern!

I’m sure you can imagine with all of the taping, un-taping, re-taping, it’s a laborious project, but I do love how it turned out.  What are your thoughts?  Any desire to tackle a similar challenge?

 

If you’ve got a need to paint something, but aren’t necessarily up for the walls, connect with ScotchBlue via ScotchBlue™ Painter’s Tape Facebook Page, and ScotchBlue™ Painter’s Tape Twitter Page!

 

 

This post is a collaboration with ScotchBlue™ Painter’s Tape. To join the creative community, visit www.facebook.com/ScotchBlue.