I then planned to stencil on Sunday. We had morning prayer + rehab visit in the morning and then joined a gathering to study Systematic Bible Study in the afternoon. When we got home, it was already evening. I don't remember what happened that evening anymore, but no stenciling was done.
I then planned to stencil on Monday evening. Then David reminded me that we needed to do grocery shopping for church lunch (our cooking team is responsible for lunch this Saturday). So I made a grocery list and hopped over to Costco while David went to Ranch 99 to do home grocery shopping and do real-time price comparisons for me. That basically ended Monday evening.
So finally on Tuesday (that's last night), while David cooked dinner, I decided to just do it. (All those motivational poems help!) So I took out the genius contraption I built (see below) to make this a fail-safe process. We are not (please, pretty please?) painting this wall again!
![Picture](/uploads/6/8/0/1/6801660/5572024.jpg)
My genius idea was to trace out the pattern row by row using the contraption so the pattern stays consistent, unlike last time. Brilliant, right? NOT! After I finished tracing out the first row, I moved the pattern down one row only to realize that some of the ends don't meet up (because the pattern is not perfectly straight)! Oh brother. This pattern is high maintenance!
I usually pride myself in having attention to detail and thinking of and preventing issues up front, but I was thoroughly humbled. I was further humbled by all the other bloggers who have used this pattern successfully without fuss. I didn't see any of them building any contraptions! They did it by eye. On entire walls. *Sigh.
So I had to think on the fly. Erasing the first row and tweaking the contraption using a leveler came into my mind for a few nanoseconds. That was squashed immediately after remembering bad memories of the eraser smudge. Which led to the magic eraser. Which led to repainting. Which we already agreed that we're not doing again.
So I got rid of my inner perfectionist because we will never finish this stenciling project with her around. I took a deep breath and decided to roll with it. So I detached the 5 patterns from the curtain rod+chopsticks and restrung 4 of them in a single line using tape. Like so.
![Picture](/uploads/6/8/0/1/6801660/2699683.jpg?219)
After I was done with the first column, I moved the string to the right and worked on the second column. Again, I used a ruler to make sure each stencil in the string is the same distance away from the corner. I continued to do this until I finished all 5 columns. It actually wasn't too bad and took me around 40 minutes total.
Here's what the wall looks liked after I was done. (Sorry, bad picture. You'd have to squint hard to see the pencil lines.)
This whole stenciling project is now turning into a long-winded journey that does not want to end. It's testing my patience to be sure. David suggested that we can probably just go to Home Depot to pick up a sample of white pearl paint that is oil-based. I'm wondering if I can use Sharpie wall paint.
Regardless, it'll have to wait for another day.