That Crazy Awesome Accent Wall

Ahhh painting. I love it. My husband HATES it. This project was the final straw. After we were done he was all, "I'm not doing any more painting." 

I did most of this, but he seriously hates painting. Anyway. Backstory on this one:

I was pregnant with baby #2, and it was another girl (squeal of glee from the woman who had nothing but brothers). We planned to re-use the bedding and decor but since our first was born we bought a house-so it was a new room and the simple paint job from our first was long gone. So anyway... I was pregnant with number 2 when we bought the house, and due about 4 months later. I started my first official semester of nursing school 2 months after we moved in (yep, I waddled into class like a very round boss haha) so my husband had no idea that one night when I had class I took a piece of the nursery decor with me. When I came waddling home with a few gallons of paint from Lowe's he definitely had the, "oh for the love...what is this crazy pregnant woman up to" look on his face. I picked up a gallon of each of these to get things started. 

Basically, I wanted most of the room to be the almost-white-so-light-pink color, with a very dramatic accent wall. First things first-move all the furniture to the center and let the 3 year old climb it.

Wait, no. Not safe. Oh geez. Ok. Scratch that. CHANGE OF PLANS.

Ok, so lock door to nursery and paint only after 3 year old is in bed. Great for the insomniac night-student preggo. Poor "works days" husband. I love that man. 

ANYWAY. I wanted to do a harlequin/diamond motif on the accent wall. There are so many tutorials about making grids, using X-acto knives etc... But in my head I was like-ok, I'm great at math. This is WAY easier than people are making it out to be. 

I was right. It's super easy. So stay with me here. Step one is painting everything the light color. This will be the color of the "stripes" between your diamonds, and also the color of the rest of the room. Then you need to decide how you want the diamonds to be proportioned, and measure your wall. 

I promise, it's easy. Just stick with me. 

I forget our exact measurements, but I knew I wanted the diamonds to be about twice as tall as they were wide. So HYPOTHETICALLY- let's say your wall is 8' tall, and 16' wide and you want your diamonds about 2' tall and 1' wide. On ONLY THE PERIMETER (ceiling, baseboard, and sides of walls) use a pencil to LIGHTLY make tick marks. Start at a corner and work out. So on the vertical, mark a tick 2' down from the ceiling, then 4', then 6', then bam-you're at the base board. Do the same across the top and bottom but at 1' intervals. 

THERE IS NO NEED TO DO A GRID. 

So starting in a corner, pull your tape TIGHT and place the tick mark in the CENTER of the tape. It's basically connect the dots. You'll need 2 people to keep the tape tight. Once it's tight and lined up, very firmly press it down. When you get started, it'll be like this 

Keep going all the way across the wall with the tape going that direction. Once you finish that, start at the same side as before and do the same thing-connect the tick marks, hold it tight, press firmly. It will start like this...

Of course you can't see the tick marks from here, but from the photo you get the idea-just look at the edges of the wall where the tape hits. When you're done you'll have a bunch of lovely blue diamonds. 

Now, The secret to painters tape is to "seal" the edges with the color UNDER the tape. This keeps the other colors from seeping under any bubbles or uneven surfaces. I wanted to alternate the dark pink and brown. In this photo you can see where I went over the tape edges with the lighter color to "seal" it. 

My husband was SO grumpy at this point... But he was a trooper. He had the pink, I had the brown... 

Work, work, work. THEN we needed a second coat. Torture to the poor guy. It looked like this when we were done painting...

You can see where things are headed... But seriously you guys-nothing is as gratifying as peeling off that tape... AWWWW yes. 

Ohhhh that felt soooo good. I was even happier when we got the room set up. This was an iPhone "pano" shot, so ignore the 2-faced cat 😂 

Also, fun fact-our baby was NOT named Juliana. I literally changed her name in a fit of tears only hours before going to the hospital. I think Juliana is a gorgeous name, but it just didn't feel right, and her new (actual) name fits her spicy, spunky personality much better. So with that being said... 

I LOVE our fun accent wall. It's still there, and even when this nursery becomes a guest room I'll probably find a way to keep at least a portion of it in tact.

Thanks as always for reading! More to come very soon I'm sure!