How I Created My Living Room Accent Wall~

First of all, I wanted to thank everyone for your very enthusiastic and sweet comments about my living room.  I couldn't be more thrilled that you like it so much!

Now about that accent wall.  That back wall is our entrance wall.  And it is large.  And it was BORING.  So I wanted to do something special that would set it apart from the rest of the room, and give it visual appeal.
 
I liked the idea of wallpaper, but of course, that wasn't in the budget.

So I decided to do something else.  Something different.  And no, I  DIDN'T stencil the wall.  I DREW on it.  Yep, DREW on it.  With a magic marker.  My husband may have had a slight heart attack when I told him my plan.  And I'm not sure he entirely trusted me even after I started the process...but thankfully, he LOVES the finished product. (whew!)

Here's how I did it...

The pattern I used was based on a fabric that I had seen while the Princess and I were out shopping for fabrics for her bedroom.  I just sketched the pattern on a receipt, and filed it away for this very purpose.

1. The first thing I did was create a template.  I wanted the design to be large scale, so I took a piece of 8 1/2 by 11 inch cardstock, and sketched it out using a bowl to make the curved sections.  Once I had the design looking the way I wanted, I cut it out.

2. Then began the fun (or the lunacy depending on how you look at it.)

I traced that template on the wall with a pencil 231 times.  Yes really... I counted.  The pattern fit precisely 21 times across the width of the wall and 11 times down the length.  And that was really due more to good luck than to good planning (but we'll pretend it was good planning, shall we?)

3. I have had people ask me how I kept the pattern level.  Well, the trick there was to trace the top row first.  I kept it level with the ceiling and then I left about 1/2 inch between the first row and the second and so on.  That's it.  My trick.  But since, I realized not all walls are completely level, I was able to compensate a bit if I needed to by simply moving the pattern up a tiny bit or down a tiny bit as I went.

4. Once I had the entire wall done in pencil, I went back over the whole thing - freehand- using paint pens. 

I had originally hoped to find plain gray paint pens, and perhaps they exist, but I couldn't find any.  So I finally settled on using metallic silver.  And I'm so glad that I did!  The whole wall came alive this way.  Depending on the time of day, and the angle at which the wall is viewed, the pattern goes from silver, to white, to charcoal gray. It's mesmerizing.

The whole project took me about 8 hours from start to finish.  But I did it over a couple of days, and I quite enjoyed it actually.  (Once I got that top row done, that is.  I'm not very tall, and even standing on that bar stool, it was a stretch to get it done.) But it wall worth it, because I couldn't be happier with the end result!!

So what do you think? 

Are you brave enough to draw on your walls??

Have a great day~