Decorating your Dining Room with Stencil

If you are not a fan of wallpaper, but you want to add some interest to your walls, consider stenciling.  Wall stenciling is a great way to add a pattern to your walls with having to go through the inconvenience or hanging wallpaper.

Simple and Cheap

When applied properly, wallpaper is certainly a beautiful application on any wall.  The great thing about stenciling is that you can get a very similar effect for a fraction of the price and effort of hanging wallpaper.  Stenciling also offers you the opportunity to tailor your designs to fit your exact tastes.  So whether you choose to add a stencil border to the top of the wall, a stencil chair rail, or stencil wallpaper, you can make the walls in your room look any way that you please by simply adding a stencil application to your walls. 

Start Simple

There are many stencil designs and types.  If you are just starting, you may want to purchase a pre-made stencil.  After you get a little experience you may want to try making your own stencil.  The beauty of making your own stencil is that you can select elements from other parts of the room, say a flower from your fabric, and you can make a custom stencil to add it to your wall.

Get Confident

If this is your first experience with stenciling, you may want to have a quick try on a practice board.  After just a couple of minutes, you will find that stenciling is not only easy, but it is fun as well.  As you get more experienced stenciling, you can increase the complexity of your design, but for your first attempt, you will want to stick to a pretty basic stencil pattern.

Stencil Designs

Whenever you are stenciling a line around a room either at the top of the ceiling or as a chair rail, it is a good idea to mark a straight and level line with tape before you begin.  If your room is not perfectly square, you may want to use this opportunity to create a level line just beneath the ceiling to create the illusion of a level ceiling.  Once you have your line marked off, position your stencil on the line and begin daubing paint onto the design with your stencil brush.  When you remove your stencil pick it straight up from the wall so that you do not smear you stenciled design.  Then place your stencil in position to repeat your design.  Continue this process all of the way around the room.  If your stencil process involves more than one color, the best practice is to go all of the way around the room with one color, and then go around again with the second color.  Of course make sure that it is dry in between color applications.

Once your have completed your design it is ready for you to enjoy.  Now here is one of the great things about stenciling instead of wallpapering: When you are tired of this design, you can simply paint the wall and it will be gone.  With wallpaper you would have to remove the wallpaper and paste, then clean and prep the wall, and then you would be ready to paint.  See, already your life is simpler.