Our kitchen has gone through many changes since we moved into our
home. Last year, my husband painted our outdated cabinets and gave
them a whole new life with that calming gray green color. (It took him
two whole days and, of course, an unexpected heat wave came through
here while he painted. Oy.)
This past weekend, we tackled a project I've wanted to complete for a
while now. Our bead board backsplash just did not go well with our
cabinet color. I had my heart set on tiling this space but learned
quickly that going the tile route would be expensive.
After doing a little bit of research, I discovered Royal Design Studio Stencils.
If you haven't checked out their website, I HIGHLY recommend it. So much beautiful inspo to look through. Not just for walls, either! Many
talented people have done incredible furniture makeovers using their stencils.
After I found their herringbone brick wall stencil, a new vision was born for our yellow-ing backsplash.
We first decided what to do about the bead board. One option was to remove the board and then add new, smooth wood in its place, and then stencil over the new wood.
Option 2 was to keep the bead board up and spackle over the bumpy
lines. Since our free time is so limited nowadays, we decided spackle
was the winner. Cutting, sanding, measuring, and nailing the wood was
not something we could take on right now. (Note: If you're reading this and you DO have the experience and time to go with option 2, I
recommend it. I feel that the new wood would be sturdier and less prone to damage after a while.)
We did a Home Depot run and then got to spackling. My husband first cleaned the bead board with soap and water. He then began to add the spackle. He covered the wall completely in the first section and then sanded once it was dry. We waited about 5 hours for it to be completely dry.
The next section we moved onto we decided to try a different technique. We were using a lot of spackle and wanted to see what would happen if we filled in just the lines of the bead board instead of the entire piece of board.
We did just the lines and then sanded once dry. Definitely wait 5+
hours to sand! All that spackle takes a long time to dry and you want
to make sure it's not wet at all before sanding.
After comparing the two techniques, my husband felt that covering the wall completely left a smoother finish. I do agree but I actually prefer the second method we used. I like the slight texture that it created, and since we would be using a faux-brick painted look, I feel that the slightly bumpy look works in this scenario!
The following day we began painting. We used Benjamin Moore's Himalayan Trek. This color would be the faux grout. We painted at night and gave our walls a full 24 hours to dry.
Next it was time for the stencil! This was hands down the easiest part of this whole process. We placed the stencil up on the backsplash and used painters tape on the very top. We put the tape on the wood of the cabinets and NOT on the gray painted bead board. For some reason, painters tape removes the spackle so make sure you are not putting the tape right on there!
While painting, we used the dry-brush stenciling method. This was easy peezy.
For this part you will need the Allover Stencil Brush brush which can be purchased here.
For the paint, we used left over white latex paint we had from an old project. You will need to dab the paint onto the brush and then brush off some of that paint onto a paper towel. "Offloading" the paint in this way helps distribute it evenly on the brush, leaving the brush in a drier state. This helps to make stenciling such a breeze! It also keeps a crisp, clean edge to the stenciled print.
We used this technique with the brush over and over, going section by section. The look this gave the faux bricks is exactly what I was hoping to achieve!
This took us about one hour to do.
You do not need to wash the stencil in between painting sections. It is such a well made product and the paint did not slip underneath it!
We let the white paint dry overnight.
The next day (about 12 hours later), I used a very thin brush to touch up a few random spots between the herringbone design.
I reused the gray Himalayan Trek paint for this. It took me less than 10 minutes to do the touch ups! The final part was the clean up. I cleared the kitchen of all the dust from sanding the spackle and scraped off some extra paint that made it onto the counters.
Here is the final look:
I'm pretty dang pleased and can't believe how incredibly budget friendly this whole
project was. Make sure to check out @RoyalDesignStudio on Instagram to see even more incredible projects and "before and afters." If you take on this project or try out a different stencil, be sure to tag #Royaldesignstudio in your photos. I'd love to see your masterpiece!
Click here to see even more tutorials and drool-worthy stencil inspiration on their website.
8 month update: PLEASE READ.
After a few months, the spackling unfortunately began to crack. We're quite certain this is because spackle is meant to cover up small areas, not large ones such as the space where the bead board was. If you're taking this stencil project on, I recommend taking out the bead board and replacing it with flat wood OR stenciling directly on the wall where the bead board was. If your wall is smooth, the latter is definitely the easiest route to take!