Stenciled Closet Wall- Monthly DIY Challenge

I seriously can’t believe it’s June already! Time is flying so fast these days! But, another month means another Monthly DIY Challenge! Yay!!! If you’re new around here, the second Wednesday of every month, some of my favorite bloggers and I do a little challenge where we pick one common item or theme, and we each create a unique project. It’s so much fun!!! This month, we all used large scale stencils to beautify a space or project. I’m a total newbie to stenciling, so I learned a lot with this challenge and was fairly impressed with how it all turned out despite the troubles I ran into!

This month’s challenge is sponsored by Royal Design Studio Stencils. They carry all types of gorgeous stencils! There are seriously stencils to meet anyone’s style preferences! I chose this beautiful Mamounia Moroccan Trellis wall stencil.

*This post may contain affiliate links for your convenience. Please see my full disclosure policy.

Okay, so a little back story… Ever since View Along the Way posted her stunning closet makeover back in 2014, I’ve had major closet envy and have day dreamed about one day wall-papering the back wall of my walk-in closet. Well, when we decided on stencils as this month’s challenge theme, I thought it might be fun to scratch the wallpaper idea and create a stenciled feature wall! And I have to say, I am so glad I changed my mind about the wallpaper, because I absolutely LOVE how the stenciled wall turned out!!!

So here’s my super unorganized and ugly closet space before:

I got overly excited about ripping the closet apart and almost forgot to take before pictures! So imagine slightly more mess ;) Please note the dingy yellow walls and the inability to open the door all the way. I couldn’t waitttt to make this closet prettier! (Also, please excuse all of the bad photos in this post… turns out it is tough to take pictures in a poorly lit room while chasing a six month old crawling baby when you have paint all over your hands! Ha!)

First, I emptied out the closet and uninstalled all of the Rubbermaid wire shelving.

After patching some holes, I gave the back wall a fresh coat of white paint. I just used some untinted flat white paint I had on hand. I painted the other three walls a light grey, "Gray Screen" from Sherwin Williams.

Then came time for the stencil! I can’t even tell you how I nervous I was! Fortunately, the best thing about paint is that you can always repaint if you make mistakes!

First, I marked the center of the back wall and the center of my stencil. Then I lined the marks up along the top of the wall and used painters tape to hold the stencil in place.

I filled my foam roller with paint and then followed Royal Design Studio’s recommendation of off-loading the roller onto a stack of paper towels. You don’t want too much paint on your roller or it will be more likely to bleed under the edges of the stencil. Once I felt I had the right amount of paint on my roller, I nervously held my breath and rolled over the stencil for the first time.

Then, while my husband (also nervous about this!) stood by watching, I let out a little “Eeeeeeeeeeek!” as I slowly and carefully untaped and pulled back the stencil. And what do you know, it looked fabulous!!!!

The next thing I was nervous about was putting the stencil on top of wet paint to paint the next section. I was afraid of messing up the paint below the stencil. My friend Bre from Average But Inspired recommended using a hair dryer to speed up drying time. So, I whipped out my hair dryer and used the “cool” setting to get the paint along the edge of the freshly painted section until it was just barely dry to the touch. Then, I lined up the next section of stencil and had no problems with sticking to the wet paint!

Where I ran into trouble was along the edges of the wall. This is where things became slooooow moving. Obviously, you can’t use a roller in the corner. And the stencil extended past the edge of the wall, so I had to bend it into the corner, hold it down with one hand, and use a stencil brush to paint. The stencil didn’t bend perfectly into the corner, so paint was seeping under and the design looked pretty sloppy. I was getting very frustrated! Thankfully, my friend Kristi from Making It in the Mountains is a pro-stenciler ;) She suggested I use a paint edging tool to make the process smoother. Luckily, I had a plastic edging tool on hand, so I gave it a try. It made the corners sooooo much easier (Thanks, Kristi! You’re a life saver!). I used the edging tool to press the stencil into the corner which made it easier to get a much sharper crisp stenciling job!

Once I got the majority of the stenciling done, all that was left was along the ceiling and the floor. For the ceiling, I used the piece especially made for using along the ceiling included with wall stencils from Royal Design Studio. I ended up folding the stencil along the edge of the design so that I could perfectly fit it along the top and tape it onto the ceiling. I cut the edges once I got to the corners to make the stencil easier to work with.

I used an artist sponge to do the stenciling along the ceiling and floor.

Along the floor, I taped off the molding with painters tape and used the edging tool again. I pressed the stencil down against the trim and used my stencil brush to stiple in the design.

Overall, stenciling a wall was hard work and had a bit of a learning curve, however, I was so impressed with the final results that I almost forgot about how hard it was! I've read a few tutorials that said it only took an hour or two to stencil an entire wall, but it took me way longer. There were a few spots I had to go back and touch up with a small brush, but for the most part, there wasn't too much bleed-through.

After allowing it all to dry, touching up a few spots, and finishing the cutting in on the other walls, I reinstalled the wire shelving. I decided that I wanted to reconfigure the shelving a bit, so my husband helped me cut a few of the shelves with a hack saw. Here's a sneak peek, but you'll have to wait a couple more weeks to see the final closet reveal! I'm working on a few furniture makeovers for this space as well as a few other things! This stencil has certainly set the stage for this closet makeover, and I am so excited to see how it all comes together!!!

Ready to see more beautiful stencil projects? My friends came up with some really creative ways to use their stencils! Check them out in the gallery below!