Marker Wallpaper

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and we had a lovely family dinner. At the end there was hardly any food leftover! It seems as if the excitement wearied my son, he’s been taking marathon ‘naps’ since last night. So… I have some time to share with you my most recent project- Stenciled Accent Wall!

When we did the first tour of our home, before putting in an offer, the wall in the living room had a stone design wallpaper. Thankfully, they removed it before we moved in. Since then I have tossed a few ideas around in my head about what to do to the wall. My brother (13 years old then) suggested built-in bookcases  but based on the overall layout of our space that would be too much.

Then I got hooked to the idea of putting up wallpaper. I found the perfect design and even bought enough rolls to cover the wall. I thought doing a Google search on how to install wallpaper would solve our installation needs, but after reading the steps I grew a bit timid. I didn’t want to mess the paper up or even worst do a not so perfect job. I kept the rolls for about 2 months, and then took them back for a refund.

Months later I got back to thinking about the wall. This time I hunted Kijijji and Craigslist looking for a wallpaper installer before I made another purchase.  The price quotes for were outside of my budget, ranging up to $1000! No way Jose’!

We found one guy that quoted us $180 and his portfolio was quite impressive. But then I started thinking what if I didn’t like the wallpaper after installing it. All that money would go to waste or I’d be stuck with a pricey wall that I don’t like until I could afford to do something else.

I started looking for alternatives. Blogs and Pinterest are littered with lovely stenciled walls, all sorts of designs and colors at a reasonable price. I chose a stencil and was on the brink of ordering one when I came across a painted wall paper tutorial on Jones Design Company. She used a cardboard stencil to create her perfect wall!  She even had a template for free.

I immediately sketched the template from my laptop’s screen (yeah, my printer’s cord got misplaced in the move and the new one has sat at Global industries for a year awaiting pick-up). Got myself a piece of chalk and completed about 1/8 of the wall to see what it would look like. I fell in love! My mom loved it and Hubby loved it!

I was sold…until the reality struck that with such an active child I may not have the time to trace a wall in pencil and then spend time painting the trace marks. I only had time for one run at that wall (there are other projects I’d like to complete before heading back to work).  Also I didn’t like the look of the pencil lines peeping out in some projects that I saw. I needed something quicker and neater.

My pilot using the chalk looked lovely but could be easily wiped off –just not permanent enough.  I started searching for wall markers on Google and came across a marker by Sharpie called “Paint Marker”. I decided to give it a try. I ordered one pack- if it worked I’d order more. The pack had one gold marker and one silver. I tried the gold on a small wall in the guest room, liked it and then moved to our more public area- the living room.

I first painted the wall in Kendall Charcoal and then made a new stencil. It took me about 2.5 hrs to complete the wall. I worked on it while watching TV and interacting with family.  I applied techniques from other bloggers such as folding the paper in 4 to cut the stencil out ,starting from the centre of the wall, and using a level to keep things straight.

This is the best before shot of the wall  I could find (very old pic-first day moving in; in my excitement to get started I forgot to take an updated before shot):

This shows my pilot project- using chalk to create the design on the original wall colour:

 

And this is the result:

 

 

I have no regrets. Yesterday was Thanksgiving and my wall was a hot topic. At first some thought it was wallpaper!  Everyone loved it!

I love it!

Keep posted for the steps I took to stencil my wall using techniques from other bloggers.  Or check out the original tutorial at Jones Design Company.