That Pesky Focus Wall

Trying to figure out what to do with my one wall in my living room was quite a source of debate. Wallpaper? Paint? Wasn’t sure. 

I was favouring the one on the left, but was worried that it would be a little too much.

I kept the two wallpapers that I liked taped to the wall for a number of weeks. I liked them, I just wasn’t convinced that it was the best choice for the space. This is a small condo and I didn’t want it to be overwhelmed by some bold wallpaper – unintentionally dwarfing everything else in the room. A friend of mine brought up the point that this wall was behind the TV, and that when I watch the TV I’m going to have to stare at the wall and that it might not be the best idea to have something overly visually distracting. So the debate continued.

I finally decided that stripes might look good and that I could accomplish said stripes with tape, ruler, a level and a little patience. But that brought about the debate of what colours. A couple weeks ago I received my monthly Style At Home magazine and was flipping through the pages when I spotted a particular colour combination. 

Sorry, not the best pic, but I liked the combo of the soft creams, blue and greeny-greys

I liked it. Subtle, but I thought it would be a great compliment to the rest of my bright blue living room. I took the magazine with me to Home Depot and stood in front of the CIL display and dove in. I stood there for about 20min or so, grabbing this paint chip and that paint chip, trying to find the right tone of each colour that I liked and that would work together. I finally decided on :

Fostoria Glass

Kitten White...lol, yes I chose it for it's name

Oyster Bay

I went and got the appropriate bases for the colours and brought my choices to the paint desk. That’s where I was served by Grumpy Bob. Normally you get some kind of smile out of someone behind the service desk, but not in this case. I pointed out which of the colours I wanted from the colour cards and he marked them off. He looked at me with a bit of a scowl as if he was thinking “another clueless woman getting paint”. That scowl quickly lifted as he saw that I had chosen the proper bases for each colour. His brow raised in a slight indication of approval and slight surprise. He looked at me, I smiled and nodded knowingly at my correct choices of said base. After mixing all my colours he slid each tin towards me and, almost cheerily, said “have fun”. Hopefully Grumpy Bob had a better day after that.

On a side note, I’ll share what I’ve learned about choosing the correct base for your paint colours. There are 3 standard bases – accent, medium and white. They come in various finishes like egg shell, flat, gloss, and semi-gloss. To choose the proper base all you have to do is, at least in the case of CIL paint chips – I assume it is the same for all others, read the last letters on the paint chip. 

The “A” is for accent base, the “M” is for medium base, and the “W/B” is for white base. As for what finish, that all depends of what your using it for. Flat or egg-shell is good for bedrooms and living areas, semi-gloss is good for bathrooms and kitchens where you require high-scrubability. Gloss is a good cabinet or base board paint. It can survive the hits and dings that that type of surface can endure. If you are painting a dark colour on top of light, tinting the primer can be very helpful, but it is not vital. However, with darker colours you might need to do 2-3 coats of paint to get the optimum colour that you want. If you are going from a very dark colour to a very light colour, I would suggest a high coverage primer to ensure that you get an even colour with no bleed through.

Ok, so off I went home to start of my stripes. 

The walls were pretty bad - marked and dirty 

Now if you think you’re just going to whip some stripes up on the wall, you be crazy. It takes time and lots of prep work to get that professional look.

First thing, spackle and prime. Get a nice clean slate to work with.

Next, decide what you want, stripe-wise. Do you want the same sized stripes? Do you want stripes of various widths? Plan it out. 

I decided on various widths to give it a little visual interest. I then planned out what colour to put where. Unfortunately I didn’t stick to that plan and ended up having to adjust tape lines several times so I could paint where I needed to paint. So if you are to take one bit of advice from this, plan it out carefully beforehand and try to stick with what you decided – less frustrating and time-consuming.

The next steps is to paint the entire wall with the lightest colour that you have. Now, the lightest colour that I chose was the Kitten White. Unfortunately it turned out to be a little too white. I wanted a slightly creamy white and I thought that was what I was getting. But, nope, it was pretty white. So I took the paint back to HD and they adjusted it a bit. What I ended up with made me laugh – the exact builders beige that was already on my walls. Good grief. But it was the right tone so I went with it. After you give the wall a couple of coats of paint and allow it to totally dry, you can start mapping out your stripes. 

My stripes...guest starring Jon Cryer

Used little tape pieces to mark out what paint goes where

Somehow I managed to map out a tribute to "Grumpy Bob"

Now, in retrospect I could have rented one of those fancy levelers, and that probably would have made it an easier task. But, I went with what I had, which was a tape measure and a small standard level. During my research before I began I discovered a great tip on a bloggers website. I can’t remember what site it was so I apologize for the lack of proper acknowledgement. Her advice was when you’re measuring for stripes, measure from the top of the wall down, not from the floor. The reason being is that most homes are not completely level (I discovered this to be quite true as the measurement of the wall behind my TV is a ¼” different than the measurement of the wall behind the bookcase). A crooked line at the top of a wall will be more noticeable than one near the floor. She also recommended that the stripe near the floor be a large stripe to fool the eye into not noticing the slight difference in stripe width. Totally true. I can’t tell the difference. After marking each line with a small pencil mark, I then used the level to place the tape to ensure straight lines. Not an easy task on your own. It’s took a good couple of hours of measuring and leveling to get all the tape lines in place. 

Now, the big problem with doing lines with tape is the bleeding of tape underneath. There is higher priced tape out there that claims to prevent this bleeding, but I challenge that notion that anything beyond standard painters tape is required. The key is the technique. First, take your thumb or even a credit card, and run it along the tape to ensure it is properly stuck to the wall. Next, use a sponge brush and put only a minimal amount of paint on the sponge. When you apply the paint, stroke towards the middle, basically feathering the paint in ward and putting very little pressure on the sponge. What you’re trying to do is use the paint to create a seal between the edge of the tape and the wall, thus preventing any additional coats from slipping underneath. Do one very light coat and allow dry for about 5min, then do a second thick coat with a regular paint brush. Only allow to dry again for about 5min, then take off the tape for that stripe. Leaving the tape for too long on the wall will cause issues of the paint being lifted off the wall when you remove it. Removing the tape while the paint is still wet will ensure that your lines remain clean (just be sure to remove it slowly and don’t let the tape that may still have very wet sections of paint fall back against the wall).

After the stripes were all done I painted the baseboards a bright white and rehung my clock.

As you can see, the baseboards needed some TLC too

The result?

BEFORE:

...builders beige 

Yawn...

AFTER...

Pretty nice, eh? I really thought that I would do something more bold. But with such a small place I didn’t want anything to take over the space and make it look smaller.

The great debate remains – what to do about the clock? 

It’s a little…blah. So two choices remain before me: paint the clock a bright, fun colour; or replace the clock with a different clock. But if I paint it, what colour? If I replace it, what clock? (I will keep the clock though – I like it and I’m sure I’ll find a future home for it, either here or in my next home). So I will leave that question with all of you. What should I do about the clock? And if the suggestion is to paint it, what colour should it be?

For my next big bag-o-fun, the foyer closet doors. Huge. Ugly. Dodgy. Just screaming for décor. I have some ideas…we’ll see what happens. 

Love, Laugh, and Make It Gorgeous!...and have a beer while you're at it...it's summer afterall! :)

Bloggerontherun

*** minor edit - I forgot to mention that when I painted the stripes in the living room that I used the Granite Grey paint, that I used in the bedroom, as a contrast colour.