Painting a feature wall is such an easy and inexpensive way to update your room. By painting a wall, you can change the entire feel of your room and create a different look.
Our laundry is a part of our garage. It is a corner of the garage where there is a tub, a washing machine and a dryer. Very unwelcoming, boring and at the moment, disorganised and messy as we don’t have any storage in that area.
I have a big idea for the whole area which includes a workbench for all our DIY, but it’s a work in progress and progress has been a little slow with so many other projects going on. We decided that the first thing we would need to do to make it feel a bit happier, is to give it a paint job on the back wall. A happy colour that would make you WANT to do laundry. (That may be too strong a statement!)
We chose a chartreuse limey yellow colour that the camera didn’t pick up very well. It is a little more yellow than the photo in real life. It’s quite a hard colour to describe!
I thought I would do a post on how to paint a feature wall to show you how easy it is. We are complete beginners to the world of painting and the result we achieved looks amazing!
See below for a list of tools and tips. (Please note: Our wall was in near perfect condition so it did not need much prep. If your wall needs preparation, please consult a paint expert.)
To prepare our wall, I gave it a really good wipe down with warm water and a rough cloth to get rid of dust, spider webs and any surface residue.
Put your drop cloth down and you now need to cut in your wall. It will take you a little while to find your niche for what works for you, going from top to bottom, bottom to top, lots of paint on your brush, hardly any paint. My hubby and I both did cutting in and we found different things worked for each other. I would suggest practicing in the middle of the wall to get the feel of the brush before you start on the edge.
Cut in all the way along the edges of your wall. Make sure you cut in a good amount so when you are rolling the paint later, there is no fear of accidentally grazing the side walls. I would cut in about 10cm. I chose not to use masking tape as I find that it always bleeds, but it is your choice if you would prefer to tape all the edges first so the cutting in is faster.
Now you need to roll the paint onto the wall. Starting from one side, work in vertical sections in a up and down motion. Ensure you are happy with the vertical strip in terms of coverage before moving to the next section, taking care to not leave ‘lines’ between the strips. Use your roller to go over it again and again to blend the lines together.
Don’t worry if the first coat is patchy!! The next coat will definitely look better! As you can see in this photo, there are patches where our testers were, but not in the final photo.
Wait for you wall to dry before putting your second coat on. For the paint we used, we needed to wait 2 hours. Make sure you read the wait time on your paint tin.
2 hours later…… do it all over again. Cut in. Roll paint over the wall.
You can now stand back and take in your handiwork! Wasn’t it all worth it?
Project supplies:
- Interior acrylic paint in the colour of your choice. We used Dulux Wash and wear 101, low sheen, in the colour Church Road.
- Roller, sleeve and tray. The sleeve is important for the finish you want to achieve. There is also a difference between rollers for acrylic paint and oil paint so make sure you ask the paint experts for help if you are struggling. We did! We used a 6mm nap sleeve with a width of 230mm. This gave us a smooth finish with a tiny bit of stippling.
- Drop cloth for the floor
- Brush for cutting in. We used a 50mm rat tail angled brush by Monarch which had a really long handle for more control. It was a fantastic brush.
- One 250ml test pot of the colour you are painting your wall, if you can get it, ( read below )
- Damp cloth
- Damp sponges
- Ladder
TIPS:
- Make sure you try the colours on your wall first and wait for it to dry. I would also paint two lots of the same colour; one in the sun, one in the shade. The colours on the paint chart is very different to the colour it comes out, and then again different to the colour that actually dries. It would be so much easier if it was exactly the same!
- When you go to the paint store for your test pot, try and go to a smaller version of a hardware store that carries Dulux. Their policy is that if they don’t have the test pot colour in stock for you, they will make up a new one for you on the spot in a 250ml size. The normal test pots are only 80ml, so you get more paint for the same price!
- The 250ml test pots are AMAZING when you are cutting in. You can get your brush in there perfectly and also be able to hold it in your hand comfortably unlike a roller tray. Great when you are balancing on a chair or ladder.
- A few damp sponges is great to have on hand when you make a mistake with cutting in. Trust me, you WILL make a mistake. When you accidentally go over the line, just quickly grab your sponge and give it a wipe on the area you made a mistake.
- When cutting in, start on the side that is the most inconspicuous just to give you some practice!
- Make sure you stand back a few times during the cutting in process. When you are up close, the line between the 2 adjacent surfaces seem to blend into one. It often needs you to stand back to be able to see how wobbly your line really is!
I hope you find this useful if you are wanting to update a room with maximum impact. We are definitely not experts, but this is what has worked for us.
