home work

Ahh the masterpiece that is my bedroom wall. Ha! I was super excited to work on this because I haven't painted my bedroom in, oh, my entire life. Yeah, I think that's actually true although I hadn't realized it fully until just now. I am pretty sure I never painted any of my bedrooms growing up, which was fine because I was perfectly happy to litter them with magazine clippings instead. And I've lived in apartments ever since, usually moving once a year making painting not quite worthwhile and mostly not allowed. No wait, I did have one apartment in Richmond which I was allowed to paint. I went really bold with white walls and grey trim. Exciting, I know. So I had this idea to paint diamond shapes on my wall and to leave random diamonds open to see the background color. It didn't dawn on me until well after I had finished the project that it resembled argyle. Which, incidentally, I am also ok with.

So here's the inside scoop, in a nutshell.

First you buy at least two rolls of frog tape. Frog tape is like painters tape, but better because you are far less likely to get paint bleed underneath the tape. The guy working at Home Depot will try to convince you that all you need to do is buy the cheap blue tape and edge it with a brush instead of rolling over it with a roller. You will try for approximately 30 seconds to explain to him what you intended to do with the tape and that you were most certainly going to just roller over it, but realize that it was no use. Smile and nod and when he finally leaves you alone (why is it that the one time you don't want help at Home Depot the only time they bug you?) get the frog tape.

Now choose a place on your wall to start. Any place will do. Choose an angle, whatever you want. This is a very scientific process. I had a general idea of how I wanted my diamonds to be shaped and I went with an angle I thought would work for me. Once you have taped all the way down the wall in a straight line, measure 12 inches from one side and mark at several places down the wall. This is where your second line of tape will go. Continue. You will end up with one big stripey wall. Admire your work. Then start all over again in the other direction. Unless you have a protractor, which I did not, you'll have to do your best to replicate the angle you made going the other direction. It'll probably work out pretty well after a few tries. Repeat the measuring, marking, and taping process.

This is what you get:

Woohoo! That looks amazing!

Now paint. I pretty much just started going at it, but I left more unpainted than I wanted (intentionally) so that I could go back in and make more educated decisions about which ones to paint and which ones not to paint. I'm telling you, scientific process here. In general I just made sure not to leave more than one open on each row and each column, and two open diamonds were not too close to each other.

It looks a little bit like this now:

Eventually, you will be all finished. If you're like me, this process took about a week or so and you're a little bit concerned about peeling all the tape off and how much of the paint will come off with it. A little bit did come up, but it was no big deal. All that work was totally worth it, and I'm pretty proud of my wall.

What do you think?