What I Did To My Big Blank Wall...Part 2

I finally finished my "blank wall project".  My son is home from the hospital after his surgery and is doing good.  Thank you to everyone that sent well wishes.  I missed being able to work on stuff at home during his recovery but I'm happily back at it now :)


Here is the large wall mural that now covers the big blank wall.

I've never posted any pictures of my master bedroom because it's not the typical bedroom.  I would love to have a nice bed surrounded by beautiful furniture.  You know, like the ones we see on Pinterest all the time.


But I don't have the "typical" bedroom.  My husband and I share our bedroom with my 9 year old son.  He has multiple health problems and has to sleep in a medical grade handicapped bed.  He has to be monitored throughout the night so I have to sleep in the same room that he does.


His setup basically takes up about a third of our bedroom so our furniture arrangement is weird, to say the least.


For example, our (queen size) bed sits in an odd place in the room.  Here is a picture of one side of the bed almost touching the wall.

Whoever sleeps on that side of the bed (usually the Hubs) only has about 18 inches to walk in.  But we're all about adapting things to accommodate our son so that's OK.


You can see the big blank wall on the left side of the picture.  That has been my enemy for the past year.  I have tried to "decorate" it somehow but nothing has worked.  My husband's shoulders rub against the wall when he tries to get out of that small space so hanging pictures is out of the question.  Anything sticking out, even the slightest bit, gets knocked down.  I was so sick of looking at that big wall of nothing.


Since I've been on a painting kick, I taped off a large rectangle in the center of the wall and started painting a faux picture on the wall.  Paint doesn't stick out, huh?

I used two of the sample pots of Benjamin Moore paint that I had got at a salvage store for 80 cents each.

Just a little FYI,  calculate how much paint you will need before you start painting.  About halfway through painting the largest part, I realized that my little 2oz. sample pot of paint was not going to be enough.  Why on earth I thought that I would have enough is beyond me.


This is where I had to get a little creative with painting.  I put down the paint brush and grabbed a typical kitchen sponge (I get them at the dollar store).  I love to paint with them.  I kind of smear the paint on the wall to create a color washed effect.  I think it adds a textured look and in this case, it stretched out my small amount of paint.


Here is the best picture I could take of it with my camera.  The paint color that I used is a light bluish-gray color ("nantucket fog").

The base wall color (light golden tan) shows through....in some areas more than others.  I realized that this also made that portion of the wall match well with my painted headboard that I had done several months ago.  The original color of the headboard was also light golden tan and I painted over it with ASCP in Louis Blue (with dark wax sealer).  When I sanded it down (for that "distressed" look) some of the light tan paint showed through.  

wall vs. headboard

I used a vinyl wall decal (in black) for the tree/birdcage picture in the middle.  If I had to do it over again, I would use the tree/bird stencil at Cutting Edge Stencils.  I think it's much better but I already had this decal so I had to use it.  I got it a AllPosters.com and it was a pain in the %$# to put up.  I couldn't figure out what limb went where and I ended up making up the design myself.  I don't really like it but hindsight is 20/20, right?


I "framed" the whole thing out with another sample pot of BM paint (color - "hemlock").  I had enough this time, whew!  I topped that off with a thin black line to match the black color of the tree.

Now that the big blank wall is finished, I need to work on a couple of other things in the same room.   The things-to-do list never stops growing :)

Linking to:

My Repurposed Life's Catch as Catch Can

It's A Hodgepodge Life's Hodgepodge Friday

The Shabby Nest's  Frugal Friday

French Country Cottage's Feathered Nest Friday

Making Lemonade's Refresh Your Nest Friday

Happy Hour Projects' Freestyle Friday

I Gotta Create's Kiss Me I'm Irish Linky Party

Northern Cottage's Crafty Scrappy Happy Blog Hop Party
and Party Time Tuesday

Naptime Crafters' Friday Favs Link Party

Thirty Handmade Days' Pity Party

Tatertots and Jello's Weekend Wrap Up Party

Classy Clutter's Saturday Spotlight

Too Much Time On My Hands' Get Schooled Saturday

Funky Junk Interiors' Saturday Nite Special

Serenity You's Serenity Saturday

You're Talking Too Much's Meet Me Monday

Between Naps On The Porch Metamorphosis Monday

The Delectable Home's  Show and Tell Linkup Party

Color My World Challenge at Primitive and Proper