Bedroom Decorating: Birch Forest Stencil Transformation

Decorating a Bedroom with Birch Forest Painting Stencils

Ello, puppets! While the Cutting Edge Stencils Crew was away from the office, enjoying the holidays, drinking a little too much eggnog on Christmas, and sipping on a few too many glasses of champagne as the ball dropped, we received a life changing (we exaggerate a little) facebook message from Christine over at the blog Keeping Up with the Cases! She gave her out-of-date and out-of-style bedroom the makeover of its life, and we just could not wait to share the transformation with DIYers allover the world who are dying to redo their homes in the new year!

Take a look at this “before photo” of the room! Can’t you just hear it crying out for little stencil TLC!?

We’re not sure which was louder: the room’s cries for attention, or Christine’s cries for help! Either way; Cutting Edge Stencils to the rescue! Below is the “after photo” of this amazingly gorgeous transformation! This one’s a doozy, isn’t it?!

Don’t worry, we’re about to reveal Christine’s secrets to her successful room turnaround! Christine used our Birch Forest stencil pattern to paint the feature wall of her bedroom, bringing a little style and sophistication to the design of the room.

Breaking It Down

Christine’s walls started off as a dull green color (as you can see from the before photo). To cover this not-so-stylin’ color choice, the feature wall was painted in semi-gloss white paint by Olympic, while the other three walls were coated in a satin gray called Hazy Stratus by Valspar. The walls, already looking much more dapper, were still missing a key piece to complete the look: STENCILS! Christine stenciled the lighter feature wall with our Birch Forest design in the same Hazy Stratus gray (of which Christine gushes about in her blog) as the three other walls. This particular gray paint picks up different hues of blue and tan depending on the lighting. Christine was going for an extremely dark look for her trees, so she used multiple layers of paint, causing her to have to clean the stencil several times as she worked on the design (the more paint you use, the more cleaning you must do to prevent smudging!). A slight nuisance  but a small price to pay for such a gorgeous outcome! Christine chose this particular stencil for her walls because she wanted a busier design that would hide the plaster boo-boos and dry wall uh-ohs, making them impossible to notice! Christine (with the help of her mother) even dove back in with the patience of a saint to fix up any bleeds and little imperfections with a stencil brush!

Home Decor in the “Sanctuary”

The ultimate goal of this bedroom turn-around was to spend the least money possible and create the most gorgeous room possible! This does sound a bit tricky, but Christine had a few tricks up her sleeve! To create that glamorous headboard, she painted an old pantry door with blue paint called Acapulco Cliffs by Olympic in satin and hung it up with some long screws above the bead. Christine also painted the frame of her old, large rectangular mirror with the same blue paint as the headboard. She then painted the old, existing dresser with the white semi-gloss white paint she used on the background of the feature wall! All the colors are really tied together, which we absolutely adore! The totally chic purple curtains were purchased from IKEA, the nightstand was creatively crafted out of a kitchen stool, and the artwork on the walls was a collection of works that were just lying around the house!

Looking for more:

• Follow us on Twitter, where we share customer photos!
• Purchase our stencils on our website!
• Visit Benjamin Moore’s Color Chats blog for more room decorating ideas!

Thanks for reading, and happy stenciling!
Melissa and the Cutting Edge Stencils Crew