My Failures in Wall Stenciling

I feel betrayed by Pinterest and the home design blogs I consumed before moving into my condo. You know, the ones who make DIY home decor projects look so chic yet stupidly easy that you get inspired to go buy ALL THE THINGS you need to replicate the project, with the expectation that yours will turn out as flawless and magazine-perfect as theirs did. Those blogs and those Pinterest projects. I hate them all now.

paint all the walls

My first attempt at a DIY project was inspired by the total lack of decent wallpaper in this country. I wanted to show my love of bold patterns with statement wallpaper, but when I failed to find anything that wasn’t hideously dated or office-drab, I went for the one thing these uber trendy home decor bloggers couldn’t get enough of: wall stencils. The more photos I saw, the more I wondered why anyone would bother with wallpaper when a more fabulous an inexpensive alternative existed.

Wall stencils are a pattern cut out from a piece of sturdy plastic, and you’re supposed to fill in the holes with paint, effectively transferring the pattern on the wall. They are ridiculously easy to use, or so the Internet claims. Stick the stencil on your wall using painters tape, then use a sponge roller to gently add the paint over the cut-outs on the stencil. Peel off the stencil, and voila! Expensive-looking walls on a shoestring budget, said the Internet.

stencilled bedroom

stencilled wall inspiration

stencilled wall 3

Photo credit

I decided that my tiny bathroom would be the perfect place for the stencil project. I’ve always loved how large prints make small spaces look glamorous. Plus my bathroom’s diminutive size meant that it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to do it.

bathroom

me in my pajamas in my bathroom

Wall stencils aren’t available locally, but there are many US-based online stores who sell them. After careful research, I bought from Cutting Edge Stencils because they were also the only company that had idiot-proof instructional videos, an inspirational gallery, and blog showcasing their customers’ successful projects. Plus, I fell in love with this gorgeous scallop pattern:

scallop stencil

The first sign that this wouldn’t go as planned was when the materials turned out to be not as cheap as I thought it would be. The stencil from Cutting Edge cost $38.95, and then another P1,400 to have it shipped to the Philippines via Johnny Air. But I ignored it, focused only on the final product and how the expense would be totally worth it.

The second warning came when I pulled the stencil out of its poster tube, only for it to retain its rolled-up shape, rendering it unusable. Luckily it came with instructions that told me to use a blow-dryer to straighten out the stencil. I didn’t have a blow-dryer at a time, so I rolled the stencil and stretched it as much as I could, placed it in between flattened box cartons, and kept it under the couch for the next two months. I meant to only keep it there for two weeks, but weekend after weekend came by and without me touching them. I’ve come to accept that I am too lazy and impatient to DIY anything, and that there are a million things I’d rather do on a Saturday afternoon, none of which involve climbing a rickety ladder and rubbing a paint roller back and forth.

Today, I decided that now is the time to finally stencil my freaking bathroom. I wasn’t in the mood, but I’d already invested in the stupid stencils, and re-watching the instructional video had me re-convinced that this will be an easy, painless thing that I can finish in about two hours. Boy, I was so wrong.

bathroom before
Spoiler: it took me longer to cover the bathroom in newspaper
than it did for me to actually stencil anything

The instructional leaflet encouraged me to practice stenciling on a piece of newspaper or cardboard before hitting the walls. Great advice, except the results had me feeling very discouraged. Despite flattening the stencils as best as I could, physically and with a blow-dryer, the damn thing didn’t stay completely flat. So even though I applied light pressure and made sure my roller brush was close to dry, paint would occasionally seep through the edges and make them look jagged.

After about 30 minutes of practice, experimentation, and the same discouraging results, I decided that I can live with imperfect bathroom walls. Maybe I can delicately correct the crooked edges with some water or something. Plus, I have to be at a friend’s house for Arkham Horror in less than 4 hours and I haven’t showered since yesterday. And so I began.

Then the one thing happened that I wasn’t prepared for. Instead of appearing smooth and opaque on my walls, the paint formed a weird, sponge-like texture upon application. This didn’t occur during my practice, so at first I thought it was because there wasn’t enough paint in the roller. But after three coats, the paint still kept its spongy texture. Maybe I should have put a primer on first? Maybe the base paint was too glossy? But the instructions didn’t warn me about these things. Baaaah.

stencil fail
I only thought to take a photo after scrubbing most of the paint off.
Imagine this texture with more paint. That’s how it looked.

At that point I decided to just stop painting and consider the project a failure. No point in wasting the afternoon stenciling all the walls only to keep creating the same annoying spongy texture. Luckily I was using latex paint, which meant I was able to remove whatever I had created with water and some paper towels. But not all the scrubbing in the world could remove the stain of disappointment caused by my uncooperative paint and stencil.

So the next time you see a pretty stenciled wall and think, “Oh, that would look so lovely in my home! And so easy to do too!”, remember that not every DIY project is as simple or painless as the Internet claims it to be.

Have you ever tried stenciling your wall? How did it go?

Cover photo credit

5 Realities Your Broker Won’t Tell You About Buying a Condo

I’m a few days away from moving into the shoebox I bought from Robinsons Land four years ago, and the months leading up to this moment has been a crazy whirlwind of decorating and sticker shock. While I’m mostly excited about having my very own place, the whole ordeal wasn’t exactly the dream-come-true brokers and advertisements have led me to believe. In fact, I had some serious doubts that nearly led me to call off the sale.


Still excited about having a purple bedroom though!

When thought about where my frustrations came from, I realized that it was because I knew very little about the realities of buying a condo. You’d think that my real estate broker would have given me a heads up these things. Isn’t his job to help me make sense of all this stuff? But I soon learned that brokers and developers do next to nothing to educate their buyers about what they’re getting themselves into.

Here are the five things your real estate broker won’t tell you when they give you their sweet sales talk, based on my experiences:

You can’t see your unit until you have fully paid.

Your condo unit is completely off-limits to you until you pay the developer the full amount for the place. If you’re getting a bank loan to pay off your balance, a Letter of Guarantee isn’t enough. You have to pay the full amount. No exceptions. Not even if you were one of the first people to buy a unit from the building. Not even if all you want to do is look at the place and measure out its dimensions so you know what size of furniture to buy.

I found this a little ridiculous, and I never did get an explanation for why you can’t look at the property you’ve been paying for years. My broker was at least nice enough to take me to my building and show me a similar unit.

Oh, you have a bank loan? You can’t see your unit yet, and we won’t give you an exact date when you can.

My bank loan got approved and signed on February 13, but I didn’t get to see my condo until April 12 – and this was only after my mom sweet-talked someone from the marketing department to help me out. Who knows how much longer it would have taken if I had no connections to Robinsons Land?

Apparently, this is how it works: your bank doesn’t release the loan money to the developer until they receive the signed bank guaranty, Deed of Undertaking, Notarized CTS and Final Statement of Account from the latter. These papers require signatures from various offices and departments (I don’t really know which). I guess it takes nearly two months for papers to move from desk to desk?

To make a long story short – Robinsons promised and failed to return the papers to the bank on two different dates – March 14 and March 22. I started getting really pissed off when March 23 came and the bank still had nothing from RObinsons Land. You can imagine how frustrating it was to be jerked around like this and kept in the dark as to when I could finally see my damn condo.

After some drama with an extremely rude real estate broker on Twitter, a strongly-worded email to the marketing department, and the help of my mom, Robinsons finally gave their paperwork to the bank, who then released the loan on March 27.

According to the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB), buyers have a right to know when your unit’s turnover date is (turnover, meaning the date you can visit the unit and get the keys turned over to you from the developer). So if your developer is being vague as hell about when you can visit your unit, don’t be afraid to complain to the HLURB.

I’m not sure if the same foot-dragging and lousy service happened to people who paid for their balance in cash. Any experiences?

You need to pay a crapload of miscellaneous fees.

I got the sticker shock of my life when I discovered that I had to pay P158,216.20 in miscellaneous fees on top of the balance I owed Robinsons. What the actual shit.

I demanded a breakdown of the fees and this is what they’re for:

Reimbursement of real estate tax – P9,423.00
Transfer tax – P74,952.26
Miscellaneous fees * – P61,967.96
Association dues (6 months) – P11,872.98

While you can use the housing loan to pay for the miscellaneous fees, it’s still an unpleasant and unavoidable reality that I wish my broker warned me about at the beginning.

* Thanks to my non-existent organizing skills, I lost the document that had a detailed breakdown of the miscellaneous fees portion. But I remember that this included stuff like the electricity meter from Meralco, a whopping P25,000.

There are going to be rules. Lots of rules.

Even though I live with my parents, I’m used to coming and going as I please, inviting over as many friends as I want, and bringing in large boxes without filling paperwork. So I was pretty bummed when I got a 20-page document with the building rules, and even more bummed by its contents. The freedoms I thought I would enjoy were wrecked by pages and pages of rules and penalties.

I get that living in a high-rise building with 400 or so other people will require some rules to maintain peace, order, and security. And I get that I too will benefit from these rules in the long run. But I dunno – I don’t deal well with rules and authority figures. I don’t like it when people tell me what I can and can’t do. I wish I had known that living in a condo might feel like living in a police state. It would have probably made me think twice about buying.

I’m not going to provide you with after-sales service. You’re on your own, kid.

Real estate brokers are incredibly friendly and helpful during the first steps of the buying process. They answer all your questions dutifully and act as if they’ll stay by your side until you get the keys to your unit. I’m sure that there are brokers who follow through with great after-sales service. But mine certainly didn’t. While I was wrestling with Robinsons about my turnover date, my broker was nowhere to be found. Requests to help me follow up with their turnover department resulted in an indifferent “Ok”, only for me to never hear from him again. It was so frustrating.

I get that maybe brokers aren’t obligated to take care of their clients when the purchase is done. But the fact remains that they represent your developer and are pretty much your lifeline to them. They really should provide a modicum of after-sales service, or point you to someone who can assist you in these matters. I’ve talked to a few people who purchased condos and save for one who helped expedite the turnover, the others had brokers who couldn’t be bothered to return texts or calls.

Let’s not even go into how one of Robinsons’ sales managers tactlessly pointed out my weight gain. Twice.

I’m not saying that buying a condo was entirely a negative experience. In fact, I was impressed by the building’s seamless construction, and pleasantly surprised when I saw that the actual unit has a much nicer kitchen than the model unit. But I disliked being kept in the dark about these tiny yet significant details. Oh well. I hope my experiences gave you some insight about the realities of buying a condo. I certainly wish someone told me these things before I even made my first payment.

Who Am I, and What Will My Bedroom Say About Me?

A few years ago, I decided that becoming an adult requires complete financial and physical independence from one’s family. So I bought a tiny shoebox, figuring that it would make more financial sense than renting one. “It’s an investment!” everyone says, as I nodded dumbly and agreed to give up 50-75% of my monthly salary for the next five years.

The day where I finally inhabit said shoebox is fast approaching, and my current singular obsession revolves around making the place look like I hired an expensive decorator to prettify it. Only the expensive decorator is myself running on a very limited budget, with the added challenge of making the place look spacious while expressing who I am and somehow fitting everything I own.

You’d think that decorating a condo would be as simple as keeping the walls white and buying furniture at the local Ikea equivalent, but not if you have very particular tastes. On an average evening, you can find me analyzing paint swatches, studying furniture placement, and devouring every single piece of advice from my favorite design blogs. There are days when my boyfriend comes over for some wink wink nudge nudge, only to find me pinning away obsessively, with barely a grunt to acknowledge his presence. When I eat at a restaurant, I find myself paying more attention to the lighting fixtures than the menu, wondering if I can somehow accommodate the same details into my place. I know more about the different types of crown molding and where to get wall stencils than who’s running for senator and why I should vote for them.

After several weeks, I had my mind made up on the look, feel, and color scheme of every room in the place, except for one: the bedroom, the most intimate and personal of all spaces. A bedroom must be conducive to sleep, but more importantly, I think it must also carry the strongest reflection of its occupant’s personality. And that’s what makes the damn place so difficult to decorate: who am I, and what will my bedroom say about me? All my bedrooms thus far have gotten then sleep part right but failed to capture my personality, because I never put much thought into planning the space. This time, I was determined to get it right.

I think the trick to planning a bedroom lies in getting to know its space and its limitations. From there, decide what you want to use it for. My bedroom is small and square, with only enough room for a double bed and built-in closet. That’s fine by me; I want my room to be used exclusively for sleep and whatever else one might do on a bed. My desk (if there’s space for one) can be placed somewhere outside.

The next step involves choosing a color you love, and putting it on your wall, or on your bedsheets, or in carefully placed accents. Most people will be screaming at you to keep the walls white. “White walls looks nice!” they will say. “White walls will make your room look bigger!” they will say. But I have never been a fan of white walls. I want to be enveloped by a color that I love, even if that color is more pigmented than most people would paint their bedroom with.

Besides, my research shows that white walls will not always make a room look bigger. See the photo above? That’s the actual room with its default white paint, and it doesn’t look any more spacious and inviting to me.

If your room is small and does not receive enough natural light, pale colors will make it look gloomier because it highlights the shadows in the space. In addition, white walls are harder to decorate. Forget using bright colors as an accent; white will make them look brighter than they really are.

So what do you do with a small room with only one window? According to color expert Donald Kaufman, “A rich, deep colour can make a dim, somber space feel warm and luminous – even though it receives no natural light.” A dark color also makes the walls and ceiling recede, giving the room the illusion of depth and space. And so my instinct to paint the walls with rich jewel tones is vindicated.

I had my heart set on painting my walls in my favorite color, dark purple:

But then I fell in love with this gorgeous deep teal bedroom, and started reconsidering my walls.

When my boyfriend did a 3D model of the room with the paint, I was disappointed to see that the teal wasn’t working on my walls. Instead looking cozy and inviting, it created a foreboding and depressing atmosphere. And so comes the most important lesson in decorating a bedroom: what works in someone else’s room won’t always work for yours. Different architecture and light sources create different design needs. After studying the photo further, I realized the high windows and angled ceiling had a lot to do with why the paint looked so gorgeous. These elements created shadows that added depth to the color and made the walls sing. The same effect can’t be achieved on a square room with flat walls.

So I am back to my original paint choice, and I’ve never been more excited about it:

Incidentally, a study shows that people who inhabit purple bedrooms have the most sex. Draw your own conclusions about what that says about me.