When I was pregnant with Allegra, we moved the boys in together to make room for a nursery. Only problem was the blue feature wall left as a souvenir of the last small male occupant.
Having just had two boys, I was ready for some pink in my life. I wanted to create a sweet dolls-house feel for Allegra’s room.
I looked everywhere (and I mean EVERYWHERE) for pink wallpaper with white polkadots, but as I couldn’t find exactly what I was after, I decided to stencil the dots on myself.
First order of the day – paint the wall a soft, pretty powder-pink.
Sorry about the terrible quality of these photos, btw – they were snapped in low light with my old point-and-shoot camera back in the days before I’d learned how to use a DSLR.
Oh, and you may be wondering about the light fixture in the middle of the wall. It used to be a garage-style fluorescent strip-light when we bought the house. Because this room is seriously tiny and already had a ceiling fan, there was no room to add a ceiling light… unless we wanted to fork out some big bucks to replace the whole fan with a fancy fan-light. (Too hot where we live to just remove the fan altogether.) We replaced the fluoro strip with something a bit more sleek and modern, so although the solution was not ideal, at least it was better than what we started with.
Next step: polka dots!
I purchased a polka dot stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils in America. They shipped unbelievably fast. You can find the stencil I used here.
The stencil was very easy to use. I also purchased a clip-on spirit level from their store, which was a handy tool to have. It just clips onto the bottom of the stencil so you can check the level is straight as you hang. I started in the top right corner and used a few pieces of painter’s tape to hold the stencil loosely in place. Then I rolled on some white paint with a small foam roller.
The secret to avoiding bleeding underneath the stencil is to use quite a “dry” roller. So you load it with paint, and then roll off all the excess on paper towel. It means the layers go on quite light, so you will have to roll over the same section a few times to get good coverage. You can lift a corner of the stencil as you go to check your progress.
With one stencil complete, it’s time to peel away the tape and move the whole stencil down. Line up your stencil to overlap the bottom row you’ve just completed, and check your level to make sure you’re not going crooked. This will give you perfectly-spaced placement every time. The paint dries pretty fast, no need to wait in between. You can just move the stencil and keep going.
It was a pretty time-consuming process, I won’t lie. I rolled each spot individually on each stencil… and repeated that dozens of times. But it was so satisfying seeing the pattern emerge. And I couldn’t have been happier with the final result!
Just about everyone who’s seen that wall in person has thought it was wallpaper. Score! That’s the look I was going for – but at a fraction of the price, and with the benefit of being able to paint straight over it down the track if we want to update the room, I’m completely sold on stencilling. Now I might just have a little bit of a stencilling addiction! I’ve since ordered three more stencils from the same store…
Tomorrow I’ll reveal the completed nursery! (With much better photos, I promise.) It’s every bit as sweet and pretty as I imagined. Can’t wait to share it with you!
Update: You can find the full room reveal here! Here’s a sneak peek:
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I was wondering if you ever considered changing the layout of your site?
Its very well written; I love what youve got to say.
But maybe you could a little more in the
way of content so people could connect with it better.
Youve got an awful lot of text for only having one or 2 images.
Maybe you could space it out better?
Here is my webpage – best shower radio 2014 ()