Decor and interior design can often be seen viewed as little arcane, only a select few with specialist knowhow can really pull it off, does that have to be the case though? I say no! Especially if you are well stocked with WoodUbend and Posh Chalk products.
So, a little bit of background for my most recent project. We’re doing up the workshop and we had an unsightly plasterboard wall that was just crying out for something special. Luckily, I had just the project in mind. So, loaded with WoodUbend, Posh Chalk and only a little knowledge of wall decor techniques I got to work.
First thing was first, I painted the wall with some of La Magic Paint’s deliciously scented Dark Sand wall paint, this would act as a base for my whole project. The coverage was awesome and it went on a dream, in true slap it on decorator fashion, I just used a roller I bought from Amazon, only grabbing a brush for the edges. I didn’t want to mess up and of the lovely open brick work.
See, decor doesn’t have to be fiddly!
I had a plan to frame a textured wall piece with WoodUbend, but I wanted the colours and texture of the wall to take centre stage, not the mouldings. So, with that in mind, I also pre-painted the mouldings in the same Dark Sand colour. Remember, WoodUbend can be painted before heating and bending if you are using a flexible paint.
Next up on my decor endeavour was to create a base for the textured wall I was going to do, most of this colour would not show through, but it would add depth. As I was using primarily dark colours, the base had to be dark too – back to my La Magic stash, this time I picked out the brown Vintage, also deliciously scented!
I had already marked out the area where the focal design of the wall would be, so again, it was just a case of getting the paint on. No airs or graces here, no tricky decor techniques…simple! Again, we only needed one coat of this as the coverage was amazing. Once that had dried, I could really get to work.
It was time to add some colour to my quick, easy decor project. I had some Whiston’s Impasto Plaster, this comes in a plain, cream colour…not what I was looking for, so it was time to tint it. I used a variety of blue pigments to create a deep blue, as I was going to add the Blue Prussian Posh Chalk Metallic Paste over the top later, the colours needed to be reminiscent of each other. When doing something like tinting pastes it’s best to remember that you can always add more colour, you can’t take it out – so don’t be too heavy handed. Decor is all about subtlety right?!
So, plaster tinted and ready to go, my decor project called for some stippling! Now, I know that stippling was a favourite of 90’s decor, but just bare with me…I’ve got a plan! To create this effect I used a sponge, dipped it into my plaster and dabbed away.
Now, it was time for a bit of patience, this was probably the most delicate bit of the whole decor project. I needed to wait until the paste had dried a little but not all the way, some careful monitoring was definitely required. It was a case of how long is too long? In the end I left it for around half an hour, although my room was warm, this in itself posed a little problem as this plaster would crack if heated to force dry. Certainly not the decor look I was going for!
A good indicator that it’s ready for the next stage is it will begin to go a little matte in colour. Once you start seeing that it’s time to recommence, do this next stage right and everybody will think you’re a decor maestro.
Onto the most delicate part of the most delicate stage of this whole decor operation. Using something like a flexible trowel or even a business card, come in and smooth all of the peaks down. This takes a very light touch, you want to leave the dimensions there, so you want some bits lower than others, but no jagged peaks, they should all be knocked down. It’s very important to remember to clean whatever tool you’re using after each pass, a clean instrument is vital here.
Once this particularly tricky stage had been completed, a little more patience was required. The plaster needed to dry completely. If you’re following along, that was the most difficult bit of the whole decor project completed!
Stencilling! Odd numbers are in at the moment, 3s, 5s, and to some extent even 7s…luckily we have three mandala stencils, the WoodUmandala, Moroccan Melody and the Spider Mandala (technically it’s four as the WoodUmandala comes in 2 sizes, but we’ll gloss over that). Using the tinted plaster I spaced out the three mandala designs across my decor wall feature and then used some plain plaster to stencil three more on the wall. I was going for an organic, random look. I didn’t want anything too uniform.
Now, for more patience as this was left to dry.
Make sure to come back next week, things really begin to get interesting with my simple but effective decor project.