I saw this how-to (complete with a free stencil pattern!) on jones design company blog a few weeks ago and I knew that it would be perfect for our toilet room.
From reading other bloggers' comments, stenciling does take a bit of time. But that doesn't scare me off at all since this is such a small bathroom and it's just one accent wall. What scared me, though, was that it requires some dexterity with using paintbrushes. I haven't painted since I was...I can't even remember when. No matter. I remain unfazed! This room is small enough that even if I do mess up, the corrective actions would be manageable. Forward march!
Or so I thought...
Two nights ago, I went to work tracing out the pattern on the accent wall. This was much more time-consuming than I thought. After I was about half-way done, I took a step back and noticed that the pattern is not straight. Oh no!!! I went downstairs and grabbed the leveler from the garage, did a little level test and saw that the pattern has been slightly veering right about 1/4" per row, so by the 4th row, it was 1 whole inch off. *Sad sigh*. I knew I should've listened to my inner engineer ("measure twice cut once") and shouldn't have cut corners by going free-form and hoping for the best.
So I grabbed an eraser and started erasing the pattern off the wall so I could redraw it. Then, another horrible thing happened. The eraser strokes left faint, gray smudges on the wall, and you can see the pattern (that was supposed to be erased) at a certain light/angle. This is when I panicked. Does this mean I have to repaint the wall? Nooooo!!! Please noooooo!!! Have mercy!!!
That's when I put the eraser down, turned the light off and walked away. I walked over and told David that I had officially ruined our newly painted wall. He went to take a look and said, "Oh, don't worry! We can get those clay/dough like eraser things they sell at craft stores." He was very kind. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn't have taken it so well.
So I went downstairs and watched Becoming Jane. And I felt slightly better (only slightly because the ending was so sad that I cried in David's arms. I'm so sappy).
Yesterday I was browsing online to see what people used to remove smudge marks from walls. Tons of moms were raving that the white-spongy magic erasers can rid all evil from the walls -- even permanent markers! Thankfully, my Mom left us a few packs of these magic eraser things. I was crossing my fingers that this would be the easy fix.
Sure enough, last night using the magic eraser, I scrubbed our walls clean of smudge marks and pencil marks! A few strokes did the trick! It really works! But then I took a step back and noticed that the eraser strokes also erased the sheen off the wall. So now I can still see the stubborn-refuse-to-leave stencil pattern--not as smudge marks anymore, but as the "non-sheen" portions. Strike 2. Oh my. Someone please save me from this nightmare.
After evaluating the situation, David offered to repaint the wall for us to undo all my boo-boos. *sigh. I considered for a brief moment about living with it and just stenciling right on top of the less-than-perfect wall. Who would see it anyway? It's so subtle. You'd have to scan the wall like you're looking at a hologram to see it. Well, I will. The perfectionist within kept having her issues. Urgh, darn the perfectionist. Fine, we'll repaint the wall.
But that will have to wait for another day when I'm feeling braver.