I wasn’t planning on turning this into a blog post, but I have NEVER received so many DM’s on Instagram about our nursery accent wall. If you haven’t seen it yet, well this is what we did. I’m sharing all the details in this post.
I want to start by saying, this was not my idea. I got the inspiration from a mommy influencer on Instagram. She did something very similar and I LOVED IT. I knew I wanted a rainbow in my baby’s room, because she is our Rainbow Baby. ( A rainbow baby is a baby that you have after the loss of a child. ) But I didn’t want something typical. SO when I saw this sort of abstract rainbow wall, I immediately knew this is what I wanted to do.
When I showed Andrew, he agreed it was cute and then I went down a loooong rabbit hole of choosing colours. This probably took the longest…
I spent HOURS and DAYS just looking at different neutral colours. I’m a HUGE fan of Benjamin Moore paints. I know they can be slightly pricier than others, but they have the best selection! We don’t love the idea of pink in our girls room. I’ve never cared about pink for girls and blue for boys. It’s stereotypical and I’m not into it. I wanted to stay neutral with our girl’s room. Lots of mauves, beiges, and earthy, sand tones. (which I think I achieved). You can find the exact colours below. (They are all Benjamin Moore)
Colours we chose:
- (SAND) Bottom of the wall horizontal lines: 2163-40
- RAINBOW: 2164-60
- (SUN) Top left hand corner: 2098-50
- (SUN RAYS) Horizontal lines: 2162-60
our technique:
To be very honest, we didn’t have much of a technique. As you can tell in the sped-up video, we didn’t have any lines pre-drawn, or any green tape that outlined the wall. We had bits of green tape that sectioned off where we wanted to start and end the rainbow, sand, and sun.
STEPS TO CREATING THE NURSERY ACCENT WALL:
- Once you have chosen your colours, lay them out neatly so you don’t accidentally mix them up.
- On a piece of paper, draw out what you want the wall to look like. We roughly did that just to make sure we were both on the same page with the final look.
- Place a few green tape markers where you want your lines to start and end. We did not put green tape all over the wall. This accent wall is supposed to look hand-drawn. We didn’t want any perfect lines, but rather flimsy, free-handed lines.
- Start at the bottom and work your way up. We found that to be easy.
- Take your time and work slowly. I found that at times when we got a little over-confident and moved faster, we would make mistakes. LOL. So take your time and brush slowly.
- Make sure you tape the connecting walls as you don’t want to get paint on them.
- I loved the idea of leaving white space in between the painted lines. It was very modern so we went with that.
- Get a couple of foam paint brushes for cleaner lines. We found this very helpful to clean up some of the messes.
TIPS & THINGS WE LEARNED:
- Pick two similar paint brushes. I used a 3 inch and Andrew used a 3.5 inch. You want the lines to be fairly similar. You can always manipulate your brush to be thinner by tilting it on an angle.
- Work on opposite sides of the wall. Most of the time, Andrew and I weren’t getting in each other’s way because we were always working on separate sides. I did the entire rainbow. He did the sun. We both worked on the rays together, but on either side of the rainbow.
- Always have a wet cloth handy for any little mistakes. You will want to wipe that off immediately.
Okay, there you have it. I tried to be as detailed as possible, but like I said, we free-handed this nursery accent wall entirely, and just went with the flow. I can’t wait to share the FULL nursery room with you guys. Might be a while from now though.
Most importantly, have fun while doing something like this. It’s a great little memory and very special because our girl will grow up knowing that her parents did this mural for her. We played A LOT of Beach Boys while painting the wall because we were heading on a sunny vacation the week after!
Xx, kim
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Thank you for sharing this!