Many DIY decorators are intimidated by allover stenciling because of the corners. I totally understand why! Corners seem so scary! One thing is to stencil a feature wall, another – to wrap entire room in allover pattern, and keep it straight! But the great news is that with our expert tutorial you’ll become a Corner Pro in no time.
Sooo, we’ve been stenciling our wall and reached the corner of the room. Let’s wrap that pattern around the corner!
Once you get to the corner, gently bend the stencil and place it into the corner and make sure you pattern lines up with your previously stenciled pattern. What seems to work best is to tape and stencil one wall at a time. Secure half of the stencil in place leaving the other half unattached. Load your dense foam roller with paint.
With your dense foam roller, roll over your stencil and then roll directly into the corner crease. Use light to medium pressure, as usual, to avoid paint seepage.
Now you can detail the corner by using the stencil brush, make sure to off-load your brush onto a paper towel. Carefully pounce the corner with your brush making sure to use a straight up and down motion. This will help you to fill in the detail.
Remove the stencil and let’s do the right side. Note how crisp our edges are! We didn’t use any spray adhesive, but made sure our roller was not overloaded with paint and we didn’t press hard on it.
For the right side we’re going to install our Clip-on stencil level, since we are starting a new wall and want to make sure our pattern is level. Simply slide the Stencil Level onto the top of the stencil, making sure it sits firmly against the edge of the stencil. Once you’ve checked for level, secure the right side of the stencil with painter’s tape.
Now we are going to roll the right side just like we did the left side. Notice how the un-taped part of the stencil doesn’t line up perfectly – this is because most corners are not perfect, and that’s why we are stenciling one wall at a time! Detail the corner with your stencil brush after rolling.
Now carefully remove the stencil, and there you have it: the corner is conquered!
The rest is easy: just keep stenciling and watch your wall get covered in trendy allover stencil pattern!
It gets a tad little trickier if you have to go around intricate profile moldings. You may need to use a brush to get into tight spots and bend the stencil here and there. Tricky, but totally do-able!
Once you learn this Corner stenciling technique, you can create a designer wallpaper look in any room of your house with allover stencils, for the fraction of the cost of wallpaper!
Stay tuned for our Stencil tutorials and expert tips and tricks!
Happy Stenciling,
Janna
2 comments
What about a border like Virginia Creeper … Suppose you want to end it before the corner but the stencil goes over the bend. Do you cut it or tape up areas you don’t want to bend around the corner?
Hi Anna,
In this case, all you would have to do is bend the stencil to the corner to get complete coverage to the very end and just stop there. You wouldn’t continue the design on to the next wall. To prevent the paint from going on to the next wall you can tape it off.
Hope this helps!