Alyice on March 31st, 2008

The Wall Phase

Having lived in a rental all my life I couldn’t wait to “do what I wanted, when I wanted, and how I wanted” to my new home. I must admit that painting on the walls was a bit scary at first. “What if I messed up?” “What if it turned out ugly?” “What if I later changed my mind?” Luckily, I had a very supportive husband who answered all my what ifs with “Then you start over. You paint the walls with a primer and paint the walls again—until you get it right.”

Once I got started, however, there was no stopping me. It was literally exhilarating and freeing to paint on the walls. There was no one telling me that my walls could only be white. There was no one telling me that I couldn’t paint scenes or animals or designs on the walls. There was no one telling me that things had to be a certain way and that’s all there was to it. Nope, I had creative freedom and I took full advantage of it.

First, I gave each room its own distinct color of paint—no more plain, white walls for me! Then I went back to each room and added a little character by stenciling and painting designs on each and every wall. My son loved dinosaurs so I painted an entire mural using both freehand and stencils. My daughter was still very young so we simply added a beautiful angel border to the top of her wall. The family room was adorned with creeping vines. The formal living room had a sponge technique that used five different colors of paint. And my kitchen used glass stencil. My poor husband never knew what he was coming home to.

After completing both my son’s and my daughter’s rooms, I got a surprise request from my kids. “Can we paint the walls, too?” they asked. I wasn’t keen on the idea of having them paint the main rooms but I also couldn’t deprive them of painting their own masterpiece and christening our home, too. After all, my creativity, as far as home décor went, had been stifled all my life and I wasn’t about to do the same to my kids. I knew whatever they created would be something special but wouldn’t necessarily go with the rest of the home furnishings so I prepped the fourth bedroom and turned it into a playroom. I told the kids to get down to their undies and handed them their very own paintbrushes and paint. Once they were done, I went back over the wall with a sponge technique to unify their work of art with the color found on the solid walls.

It was the talk of their school for years! And something they were quite proud of. In fact, they showed off their mural to anyone who walked in the door—even the cement guy!

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