Stenciling a floral design to create an accent wall for a beautiful, bright, and modern home office makeover during weeks 6 and 7 of the one room challenge of spring 2021.

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It’s almost the final stretch of the One Room Challenge…Week 7.

I’m making over an open dining area into a beautiful, modern, and bright home office for this season’s One Room Challenge.

I am participating as a guest blogger with many other bloggers in the One Room Challenge where everyone gets to makeover a room of their choice over 8 weeks.

You can see all the featured designers here and all the guest participants with a blog here.

I lost almost 10-12 days as I had to undergo a minor surgical procedure that required me to rest for bit. So there has not been as much progress as I had hoped for, but I think I can still finish strong!

Here is how my progress has been over the last few weeks:

1. Week 1 – Design and plans for the home office
2. Week 2 – Chose paint colors for the cabinets and walls
3. Week 3 – Painted the room and started building cabinets
4. Week 4 – Finished building cabinets and bases
5. Week 5 – Added trim to cabinet drawer fronts and doors

I stenciled the wall against which the cabinets will go to create a beautiful accent wall in the home office these past two weeks.

Even though it doesn’t seem like much, it indeed was a feat to stencil 12 feet of wall.

STENCIL DESIGNS

I knew that I want to create an accent wall with a floral pattern in the home office and my first thought was wallpaper.

I began browsing for wallpaper and most of the designs that I liked cost a fortune that I was not willing to spend. So I chose to stencil the wall instead.

Here are some of the stencil choices I am considered.

I posted a poll on Instagram and most of my followers chose the first pattern and I liked it too!

But once I painted it onto the wall, I didn’t quite like the scale. It seemed too busy and loud for my taste. Not that it was bad, but it just wasn’t what I hoped for.

So I painted it over and started from scratch again. The life of a DIYer, right?!? 🙂

For this round, I chose the fourth pattern and I chose two colors for it.

Privilege Green for the branches and leaves and Mythic Mauve for the flowers. Both colors are from Sherwin Williams. The green I chose is the same color as the cabinets.

STENCIL PAINTING

At the outset, painting a stencil seems easy enough. Place the stencil on the wall, paint over it in your choice of color, remove the stencil, and Voila!

STENCIL ON TEXTURED WALLS

I wish it were that simple!

We have textured walls and it definitely poses a challenge. no matter how hard you try, the color bleeds a bit. You can see it clearly in this picture.

I took it with a grain of salt and decided that I would just go ahead with it. I felt that the bleed-through in itself makes for a rustic, handmade pattern and it did!

THE PROCESS OF PAINTING

It takes a few extra steps to stencil a textured wall, but in the end, it’s worth it!

SPRAY ADHESIVE AND PAINTERS TAPE

The first step is to use a good spray adhesive to spray the back of the stencil. This will help the stencil stick better to the wall and makes painting easier.

This adhesive is a great choice. You can remove and stick your stencil a few times before needing to spray again.

I then added painter’s tape to the four corners of the stencil for an even better hold and these also make repositioning the stencil a bit easier.

PAINTING

I used small stencil brushes to paint the pattern.

You need to dip the brush and pick up very little paint. Then wipe off all the excess and wipe again on a paper towel to the point where there is barely any paint left on the brush.

Then go over the stencil in a stippling motion to paint the wall. Since the amount of paint is so little, it dries in an instant and you can keep adding these “dry” layers of paint till you get the desired saturation of color.

If the pattern is large enough, a roller can be used too.

Since I was using two different colors and the flowers and leaves were fairly close to each other, brushes worked much better for me.

RINSE AND REPEAT

The stencil I used has tiny triangles around the pattern that you can mark with a pencil. These marks will help to place the stencil correctly next to the already painted pattern.

As I painted, I kept marking tiny dots to know my next placement.

Once I painted the pattern, then the next step is to remove the stencil, clean the back to get rid of any paint bleed-through, paste it to the wall for the next round of painting.

Every 6-7 times, I washed the entire stencil, dried it with a paper towel, sprayed the back, added painter’s tape, and painted the next set of patterns.

I’ll admit that it wasn’t the most fun process, but I am happy with the end result.

Here is what the wall looks like after I stenciled it. I did not stencil the areas that will be covered by cabinets. There is some space at the top, but I’ll cover it with crown molding at a later point in time.

That is my progress for this week. Next week is the last week of the One Room Challenge and I can’t wait to show you the finished space.

Hope you will join me on the journey as my home office takes shape and comes to life during this season’s One Room Challenge! Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram for more detailed and day-to-day updates on the progress.

Check out other posts related to my home office transformation.

MODERN HOME OFFICE PLAN and DESIGN – ONE ROOM CHALLENGE – WEEK 1 (Spring 2021)

MODERN HOME OFFICE – PAINT COLOR CHOICES – ONE ROOM CHALLENGE – WEEK 2 (Spring 2021)

MODERN HOME OFFICE – BUILDING CABINETS AND BASES – ONE ROOM CHALLENGE – WEEK 4 (Spring 2021)