How to Stencil a Focal Wall

I have been wanting to create a stenciled focal wall in my home for a really long time, so I was beyond thrilled when Royal Design Studio sent me one of their stencils to review. I had grand illusions of a beautiful geometric design gracing my stairwell, but soon realized that the graphics would compete with our ornate stair ballusters, and I was worried that it might be a bit too crazy on the eyes.

I shifted my focus towards my master bedroom instead, and I’m so glad that I did! We’re currently transforming our office into a craft room which means that I’m relocating of all the crafting areas and supplies that have taken over every corner of our bedroom. Adding some decorating pizzaz to the bedroom by stenciling the wall seemed like the perfect way to start taking back our space.

Look at what we started with:

This space was so sad and uninspiring. It pretty much looked just like it did when we initially unpacked our boxes after moving here four years ago. How embarassed am I to admit that I have a degree in interior design, and my own master bedroom looked like this? Time for a change, for sure!

We started by giving the wall a fresh base coat of flat paint (Behr Swiss Coffee). Next, we gathered up our featured paint (Martha Stewart Grey Squirrel) and stenciling supplies – pencil, small paint rollers, paper towels, a level, and low-tack green painters tape. The Eastern Lattice Moroccan Stencil that we used has an intricate and delicate pattern, so using repositionable spray adhesive to hold the stencil to the wall allowed us to have cleaner edges and sharper lines. A small paintbrush was also necessary to touch up the edges as needed.

I was eager to jump into stenciling right away, but learned that it is important that you practice on another surface first before diving right into stenciling your wall. Different paints and surfaces may work better with one kind of roller/brush or another, and you don’t want to waste time having to cover up a bad stenciling job and starting over again. Ahem, don’t ask me how I know that. We started by using the recommended dense white foam roller, but ended up needing to use a roller with slightly more nap (Purdy White Dove 3/8″).

We have really heavy texture on our walls, which proved to be the only real downfall in stenciling. It took several coats of paint every time we moved the stencil to a new location, so we grossly underestimated the amount of time that this project would take us. The textured walls also required more touch-up than a smoother surface would, again taking up a lot of time. The next time we stencil a wall (yes, we’d do it again with a few lessons learned from the first time!) my husband and I agreed that we’d want to add a light skim coat of smooth texture on our walls first to avoid some of the issues that came up with our heavy texture.

Begin by placing your stencil in the center of your wall so that you will end up with an even and equal amount of pattern repeat leftover when you reach the edges.

Find your rhythm and start stenciling by using very thin coats of paint and building it up layer by layer…

…keep stenciling…

Day 1, Hour 1

…and stenciling…

Day 2, Hour 7

…and stenciling…

Day 2, Hour 15

…and then stencil some more!

Day 2, Hour 17

Yay, finally finished!!!

Day 3, Hour 23

See what I mean about the heavy texture on our walls – it was a killer!

It was SO worth all that time and effort! I still have a good deal of touch up to go back and do, but it looks great already (especially when you’re not looking at it from 6″ away!). I love, love, LOVE it! I’m inspired to makeover our entire bedroom now! Next up, an upholstered leather headboard 🙂

Congratulations to Jessica W! She is the giveaway winner!

Just head on over to Royal Design Studio and come back here and let me know which stencil you’d choose. Giveaway will end at 9:00 PM PST on Wednesday, June 6th, and the winner will be announced the following day.

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