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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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
