Dreamy Soul Living: Faux Paneling Project

What A Week!!!!!

I thought that renovating the Rotating Renters' Room would take just the weekend. Boy, I sure did fool myself!

This is how my grand renovation commenced. I started planning the painting project on Thursday. I spent all, and I do mean all day Friday taping and prepping for paint, Saturday taking a mental break from all things decorating, (I mean, there's only so much time one can spend starting at the walls, right?) Sunday I spent actually painting, and Monday saw us beginning to stage out the room. We pretty much finished it up (minus some tweaking of course) on Tuesday. Whew! Was it worth it? Well, if you asked me on Friday, you would've gotten the quickest NO in the west. But when you see the finished product.....well, you'll get to judge for yourself!

But you won't see it today, of course. What? You think I'm gonna give it to you all in one go? Ha! If I had to wait a week to see it, then so do you!!!

What I will do is take you on the journey with me. How's that?

It took many many hours to get to this point!

I'll start with the faux panels. I wanted to give this room some architectural interest. Since I can't get enough of paneled walls, I decided to finally attempt it myself. I did a faux paneling with paint instead of wood because paint was something I could easily pull off by myself. Plus, I don't know how to use the saw (--yet), and a gallon of paint and a couple rolls of tape were going to cost me a lot less than 90 some feet of wood trim. What I had yet to find out was that, while this project was going to be easy on the pocketbook, it would prove to be not exactly easy at all!****(Sidenote----I don't want to discourage anyone from trying this project, or a project similar to it. I just want to be honest about the time invested and my own experience.)

What I first needed was a design. I picked out some inspiration I found on the web and posted it in this previous post. I didn't want to completely rip off these designs sooooo..... I completely ripped off the design of a mirror that I already had hanging on my wall downstairs!!!

The simple repeating square shapes would be the easiest to tape out, making it the perfect design.

The good thing is that I changed the shape from a square to a rectangle, thereby repeating a design element thoughout the house, but also giving some variation to it at the same time.

Here are my very professional idea sketches. ;)

On paper, I worked out the dimensions and locations of the shapes. This took forever. I'm not very good with dimensions. This fact may be a major concern in me becoming a carpenter. (oh yeah, one of my crazy dreams is to become a carpenter.)

Then I mapped out my rectangles on the wall.

I painted the ceiling white, then taped a line 10" in, all around the room. (I'll tell you why later!)

Conventional instructions will tell you to paint the entire wall the underneath color, but since I only had a partial can of white, I decided to block out my rectangles and only paint the areas where I would tape the design in.

Here we have what one would call a "big blotchy mess". Don't worry though; it's all part of the plan. (That's what I kept telling myself!!!)

Let that dry, and then I started taping.

And taping.....

......and taping........

.........and taping.......!!!!!

I have to admit, this is the perfect project if you have more time than money. It involves taping---hours.....and hours......and hours of taping. And planning. And measuring. And screwing up. And leveling tape. And, have you ever tried to level tape? Not easy. A strip of tape is not a solid piece of wood. It pretends that it's nice and straight, so you press it down, and then voila! You see that the top edge was totally hiding under the level and now you have a perfectly diagnol line! Greeeeat!

By the time I had most of the taping done, I was jumping for joy! That's when I brought my hubby in to help me paint the walls. (Although he did do the taping of the chair rail. I can't give myself all of the credit!)

The paint color I used is Tempered Gray in Satin Finish from Lowe's.

Ok, it's painted. Now it's time to pray......

Will all of that work be worth it??? How will my faux panels come out?????

Rip The Tape Off!!! Heeeere gooooes!!!