Stenciled Focal Wall in the Master Bedroom

I was recently given the opportunity to work with Royal Design Studio and review one of their stencils.  I was absolutely giddy about this as I have been stalking frequenting their website dreaming of all the wonderful things I could do with their stencils.  When it came time to actually pick one I was faced with a dilemma, I knew that I was going to be painting the focal wall behind our bed in our master bedroom, which meant that I was going to need my hubby’s approval input approval.  I decided that I would go ahead and narrow it down to my top three and then let him have the final say.  So I spent hours and hours imagining what each one would look like in my room and finally narrowed it down to these three.

I showed my hubby each of the stencils and he picked the first one (Endless Moorish Circles Moroccan Stencil).  I ordered it and was pleasantly surprised to have it arrive only a few days later.  I am super impatient and the ridiculously fast shipping was a total bonus!  Now rather than having a super busy and contrasting design (I have more plans for this wall in the future- just you wait) I knew that I wanted to do something like what Beth and Nick did here, and use a high gloss finish of the exact same paint color that was already on my wall.  I ran down to Sherwin Williams and picked up a quart and got ready.

Now I have heard through the grapevine (aka the internet) that stenciling is very tedious and time consuming work and so I was prepared to spend my entire day stenciling this wall.  I started off by spraying the back of my stencil with spray adhesive so I wouldn’t have to worry about the tape sticking to fresh paint or not sticking to the wall.  I only had the spray it once and it remained sticky for the whole project.  Once it was ready to be stuck on the wall I got out my trusty mini level and lined up the stencil in the top left corner, made sure it was level and stuck in on!  I used a little foam roller (from the dollar store, because that’s how I roll) and a mini paint pan and got started.

I made sure to roll my roller on the slant of the paint pan to get the paint evenly distributed across the roller and then rolled out the first piece.  It was amazing!  I was instantly revved up and ready to tackle the whole thing.  I pulled the stencil off the wall and moved it down to do the next section.  Now here is the awesome part.  Each stencil comes pre-cut with registration marks on the edges.  This meant that all I had to do was line up  those marks with the part of the design I had already painted and stick it on.  No level required.  I blazed through that one and then moved onto the next top piece.  Again I simply lined up the registration marks and rolled the paint on. Now here is the part of the story where I freak out a little bit…

Because the paint was rolled on fairly thin it dried within minutes.  As it dried that awesome bright color faded into, well the exact same color that was already on the wall.  I started to question whether this was really going to look as awesome in real life as it did in my head.  I may have even called my hubby in a panic at work to spout random phrases like “it’s invisible, but do we want invisible” and “what if I used that other color instead of this color and what do you think about that” at him to which he may have replied, “I’m at work.” I decided to continue on with the original plan and knew that if it was really awful (or invisible) I could do it again with a different color.

I continued in the same pattern, top piece, bottom piece moving from left to right until I reached the far edge.  Once I was standing on that side of the room, with the window behind me I could totally see the glossy stencil pattern shining through.  It was a wonderful, subtle change and it really fit in with the soft and romantic feel I have been working toward in our bedroom.  I put our bed back together, and stood back to admire my handiwork.  Now, here is the most awesome part about this whole process.  It only took me an hour.  Yep, one hour.  Having the registration marks built in and spraying the stencil with adhesive made the whole process go ridiculously easy and fast. Plus I love walking into my bedroom at night and seeing the soft shine of the pattern.

Sorry for the really awful pictures, it is really hard to photograph something that is only visible at a certain angle and in certain lighting.  I promise you though, it is absolutely stunning in person!

UPDATE!!!!!  See how I built a custom planked head board for our bed here!