The Wall!

We have recently been renovating our dining room. When we shifted into our house we had two of the most ugliest brick bars attached to the back wall of the dining room. Needless to say we were pretty quick to rip them out. However, this left us with another issue - a big, boring wall. The wall needed to have something exciting on it to bring the room to life.

So off I went to the shops and searched the Internet for this mysterious exciting ‘thing’ that was going to bring this room to life. So after searching high and low what did I find… WALLPAPER.

And not just any old wallpaper - $500 a roll wallpaper. Now there were 3 problems with this.

1 – the glaringly obvious – its $500 a roll! Well and truly out of our budget!

2 – I have never hung wallpaper before and I didn’t think the time to start was with $500 a roll wallpaper.

And lastly,

3 – the intricate pattern means that I would have to line up the wallpaper, creating lots of wastage, and that meant buying 2 if not 3 rolls of wallpaper – definitely out of the budget!

Being in the ‘I must have it’ type mood I had to think of some way of getting this wallpaper. Eventually the thought popped right into my head – I’ll paint it! And so began ‘The Wall’. I was going to attempt to recreate the geometric pattern found on the wallpaper with paint.

Off I trotted to Bunnings and brought up all their painters tape – about 8 rolls. I have attempted something similar before and I can give you good advice that it is most definitely worth spending a few extra dollars and getting the painter’s tape rather than plain masking tape. It will save a lot of tantrums when you are trying to peel the tape off.

Back home I went, prepped the wall for painting and painted 2 coats of the base coat colour – white on white by Dulux. Then the ‘fun’ began.

I marked out with pencil marks where the tape needed to intersect and run horizontally and vertically. Then I began to tape…

About half a days work later I discovered that this wasn’t going to work and so the tape came off and went in the bin with my efforts.

Take 2 – I rejigged the markings and so the taping began again. I started with the vertical and horizontal lines.

Then carried on the diagonal/intersecting lines.

2 days later and we were done … well with the taping at least.

Next it is very important to paint overtop of all your hard work with the base colour again. This creates a seal and stops the colour coat from seeping through the edges. It gives you a nice clean line.

Once dry pain 2 coats of your chosen colour – ours is ½ white duck by Dulux. You must then wait until the topcoat is well and truly dry. Then take a big breath and start to pull the masking tape off. It’s very very nerve-racking!

But after 2 days of taping, 5 coats of paint and lots of tantrums I can now present you The Wall (undressed).