You guys, I am so excited about how our master closet is turning out so far! We are entering week 2 of the project and I just completed painting the room, along with that big feature wall that I talked about in my previous post. In that post I said I would go into more detail about my feature wall, and so that's what I'm going to do.
I mentioned how I saw this wallpaper and fell in love and knew this would be the inspiration behind my entire design for the closet.
I looked at quite a few different sources that carried this wallpaper and priced it out, and while it is a pretty affordable wallpaper, I also know that I have a very small budget for this closet, and it was a bit too pricey for me to be able to incorporate this into the design. So, I got to thinking......and thinking....and me being adventurous and also loving any kind of creative project, I decided to try and paint it. I am by no means an artist or have any experience painting, but I love a good challenge. This was also much more cost effective. The wallpaper itself would have been about $450 vs the $80 that I spent for all of the paint and supplies for the entire room. Plus, if I ever grow tired of it, I can just paint over it!
The nice thing about this, is paint colors are usually one of the last things I would choose for a room. I know this might be a bit of a surprise just because a lot of people tend to choose paint first, but if I were to put an actual wallpaper up, I would order the wallpaper first, and then take a wallpaper sample with me to choose colors so I have it in person when choosing paint. There are so many paint color options and shades, and so one color that you think may go well with the picture on the screen, might not be the best choice. So always pick paint last after you've gotten your other finish samples in.
But in this scenario, I can choose whatever colors I like. So I jet off to Home Depot to gather my paint supplies and choose my colors. I brought along a picture of the wallpaper to reference. When I was looking for the colors, I knew I needed my main wall color for the majority of the room, and then the accent colors for my feature wall. I also knew that I needed them to coordinate. So in order to make sure that the colors meshed well, I chose three different paint groups of the main colors I needed.
I loved the PPG Nevergreen for my all over color and got this in a flat sheen. to ensure that my feature wall coordinated I choose different shades of green from the same grouping. I did the same thing for my pinks and purples as well. You don't need a whole lot for the accent colors, so to save money just order samples. Overall this is what I got on my shopping trip:
Greens:
1 Gal Nevergreen- Flat
1 Qt Nevergreen - Satin
1 Sample Seaweed Wrap- Flat
1 Sample Wandering Willow - Flat
1 Sample Misty Meadow - Flat
Pinks:
1 Sample Cappucino Bombe - Flat
1 Sample Just Rosey - Flat
1 Sample Belle of the Ball - Flat
Purples:
1 Sample Eagle Eye - Flat
1 Sample Gray Violet - Flat
1 Sample of Jack Rabbit - Flat
White:
I had a can of Extra White paint in Satin laying around so I just used this
Tools:
Paint Roller
edging brush - I love the Woodster Shortcut brush for this
Drop Cloth or old blanket
Palette - I just used some old ikea kids plates!
pencil
So Step one is me painting the majority of the room with the green I chose. I painted the walls, the ceiling, doors, trim.....everything except for the feature wall. This in itself made a huge impact. I went from a stark white room to a very dark and moody room. For the walls and ceiling I used the flat finish, and for the trim and doors I used the satin finish. This is always a good idea for durability and clean-ability.
And this is the result of that dark paint once I was done. It definitely took two coats since it was such a big difference, but it looks beautiful. It's much more green in person.
Since this is such a dark room with no natural light, I kept the closet system, carpet, and other finishes very light and natural. I will touch on how I plan to add more light in a later blog.
On to the feature wall. I know that is what you are waiting on. Before I ever opened up any paint, I started off with doing a very rough outline of my flower and leaf placement. I did this with just a pencil, and it really doesn't matter if it's perfect. I just wanted to have a plan of the layout.
Then I got to painting! This was my first time ever painting a mural, or really anything this complicated, so I started off with my first flower and ended up figuring out a technique I liked as I went along and ended up redoing my first flower. Its ok to mess up, especially because its paint and you can always just repaint it if you don't like it! This doesn't look exactly like the wallpaper, nor is it meant to. I wanted something unique, and the wallpaper was the inspiration. I know that I tend to be a pretty artsy person, and if you are not, there are people out there that can do this for you, or you can just go ahead and put the wallpaper up. They have this wallpaper in a peel and stick as well for my first time wallpaper people. :) But I was all about saving money and doing this DIY, so this worked best for my situation.
It was a pretty fun project and something to let some of my creativity out. It's not perfect, but its unique and I think its turned out great. This has more of an abstract look than the wallpaper, which I am really into abstract art as well.
And here is the final Result!
Let me know what you think in the comments! And don't forget to check out some of the other cool spaces designers are submitting at The One Room Challenge Blog Site
