Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend

Ms. Marilyn was correct- diamonds are a girl's best friend.  Whether it be in a ring, a necklace, or on a wall.  Diamonds can do no wrong.

When I first moved in, I loved my bedroom.  Coming from a home where my master was about 11' x 11', it was sooo much space.  I was able to fit furniture from two of my old rooms in this room, and still have plenty of space to spare.  The angled ceiling was a really neat feature, and made it feel even bigger.  Part of me loved the two levels in the bedroom because it kind of created a built in sitting and sleeping area, and part of me was terrified of it- still waiting to wake up in the middle of the night and fall on my face trying to get to the bathroom.

Though it was a neutral color, it was missing something.  The more and more time I spent in the room, the more and more that "neutral" color started looking more and more yellow.  Especially with the brown carpet.  I decided that I wanted to paint it with some gray.  So I went to Home Depot (with my curtains- yes, I'm that girl at the paint samples holding up curtains) and found three color samples that I liked.  I knew that I needed two different colors because I was going to do the one wall in a darker accent color, and the three other walls in a lighter shade.  I got these cool sample sheets that I'd never seen before- they let me test the colors without ruining the wall- it's always such a pain to cover up your testing area!  So I put the three in a corner... I learned in my old house that there has to be a good amount of contrast in the two colors or it would be almost unnoticeable.

After staring at it for a while, and taking a few votes, we decided on the dark gray (Anonymous by Behr- which according to the paint guy, is one of the hottest colors this year) and the bottom shade (Silver Bullet by Behr).  I got both colors in a flat/matte finish.

Then came the longest prepping process EVER.  Had to drag Joe's super heavy ladder up the stairs to reach those really nice, high walls.  Pretty scary to be that high up, on a gimpy foot- at this point I wasn't so in love with this "neat" feature.  There may have been an accident that involved me stepping off the ladder right onto a plug and breaking the outlet in half... may have been the reason I learned how to replace an outlet :P  Plus, with textured ceilings, it's tough to get the tape to seal along the top.

Once taped, I started with the smallest wall, and felt very accomplished.  As I stepped back and admired my work, I worried that it was the wrong color.  But, this is how I always feel when I start painting- that immediate sense of regret and uncertainty about selecting the color.  So, I continued on- I always tell myself that if I don't like it, I can always go back and paint it again later (even though I full well know that that's never gonna happen).

When I hit the third wall, I kept pulling up this pin (click on the photo to check out TheFrugalHousemaker.com blog):

She made it sound sooo easy.  I really wanted to try it, but as Tessa pointed out, her and I aren't always the best at measuring and visualizing.  At this point, I was running out of weekend time.  I decided to paint the wall the same color, and take the week to debate it.  This way, I could either paint over the whole wall in the accent color, or it was prepped for the diamonds.  So at 10pm on Sunday night, this is where I was... I removed all the tape and went to bed.  I spent all week debating about the wall.

Friday night I took this photo and photoshopped diamonds onto the wall to see what I thought.  It was a rough sketch, but gave me a bit of an idea of what to expect.  Saturday morning I got up super early, since I'm always up really early, and made my weekly 6am trip to Home Depot to pick up some yellow frog tape.  I had decided I was going to go for it- worst case scenario, if I didn't like it, I could paint over it with the one color.  I decided to use the yellow tape because it's made for more delicate surfaces- since I had just painted the lighter color days before, I didn't want it to peel off that paint.  My lines would be the lighter color, and the diamonds would be the dark gray.  Now, all I had to do was tape, and then paint over the tape- easy, right?!  I used The Frugal Homemaker's measurements- 24 inches high, 12 inches wide.  I used a level to make sure that I was marking straight, and started at the little peak.  These two lines of tape?  Took almost two hours to get up.  This was the point that I almost gave up.  I started to think if it was really worth it- if it took me two hours for two lines, how long would this project take?  I was getting really tired of climbing up and down the ladder.

But, I continued, one X and one line at a time.  And yes, I took a photo after almost every line, because each little line was a small victory.  The shorter side of the wall was a little easier.

About 5 hours later, the taping was done.  I knew that it would be simple from here on out.  I did battle with myself for a while though about whether the matte paint I had bought would work for this wall.  I decided to bite the bullet and go back and buy the same color in a glossy finish.  I figured if I did all this work, and it came down to me not liking it because it didn't have a sheen, than it was stupid that I didn't spend the $35 on the additional paint.  Once I brought it home, I worked quickly.  I didn't want to give the paint anytime to bleed under the tape.  So I quickly painted the entire wall once.  And then did a second coat.  Once I'd done both coats, I held my breath and immediately started to pull the tape off.  At first I started getting really upset, because right where I started pulling, I could see the paint had bled through.  All that work, and it was going to look like a big mess!  Frustrated, I pulled the rest of the tape off the wall, making sure to not get the tape/paint on the carpet.  However, after I got the rest down, I realized that was the only spot where it had bled.  It looked amazing already- and the paint wasn't even dry!

I started cleaning up the supplies, and moving back the furniture as it dried (and took a ton of pics to show off my handiwork).  As it dried, I could tell that glossy was the way to go- I don't think I would have been nearly as happy with the flat.

This was perfect for this room- that large wall NEEDED something.  I also bought some new bedroom furniture from Vintage Rust to go with this new room.  They are custom painting the dressers and nightstands white and distressing them to complete this room.  So excited to see how they look in here!  Also can't wait to get my hardwoods installed in this room.

This was a simple, but time-consuming project, and requires a lot of patience- but, the payoff outweighs it all!