Painted Wallpaper: A Pinterest Inspired Project

I am 7 months pregnant with my second boy and wanted something very different in the nursery this time around.  With my first son, his nursery was and still is a beautiful deep blue with a white wainscot down the bottom third of the walls.  I knew this time I wanted something soft and classic.  I watch a lot of HGTV and noticed an inexpensive way to dress up a wall, called painted wallpaper.  As Pinterest.com has become a big thing in the past year, I searched for “painted wallpaper” and found some great examples and inspirations for the nursery.  I found a woman’s website called Jones Design Company and saw THIS POST and while I knew it would be a challenge, I fell in love with the design!

First I downloaded the template that she designed and had my husband blow it up a little larger at work so that it created a little less work.

Then I traced the pattern onto a piece of cardboard and cut it out with a razor knife.

Here is a picture of the blank canvas that I would be tracing the pattern on to.  In the nursery, there is a chair rail molding that wraps all the way around the room.  NOTE: I only painted the portion of the wall above the chair rail molding.

Here is a picture of some of the tracing done all over the wall.  It took me one whole day to complete this portion.

Here is an up close photo of the traced design in pencil.

Once the tracing is complete, I used a 1/4″ painter’s paint brush as recommended by the Jones Design Company and followed the inside of the lines with my chosen color of paint.  What I learned the hard way was to INVEST in a quality paint brush from either an art store or a craft store.  It will save so much time and the lines are much cleaner!

THE FINISHED PRODUCT

Being that my schedule is super busy and I am a mother to a 4 year old, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to set aside to get this done.  It took me approximately 4 weeks, doing a little here and a little there 3-4 times a week.  For someone with more time and energy and also not so pregnant, I’m sure it would take much less time!

I really thought I was crazy during the process of this project because it was taking so much time and energy but now that it’s complete, I am so happy I stuck with it!  It turned out better than I could have expected!  Here is the crib we are using for our son and it will sit against this wall.