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Wall Painting: How Not to Spend A Fortune On Texture/Special Effects

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You know this is the busiest time of the year for paint companies with chock-a-block calendar? This is when most people give their walls a fresh lease of paint before the festive and wedding season begins. The most popular posts on this blog – on Asian Paints and Surprise your Spouse have been trending for the past two months.

A special effects (textured paint) on a ~ 100 sq. ft wall can cost upwards of INR 5,000. But, you don’t have to spend a fortune if you are proud of your DIY and not too worried about a professional finish. Sponging, combing, brushing, dapple, ragging, weaving, spatula and crinkle are some of the special effects on offer.

The intent of this post is to show that you can do it yourself at home.  For steps on how to do it, this is a great starting point. If you’ve never done a painting job before, I’d suggest you get started with these handy tips.

For all the textured effects, choose a base color and another foreground one that stands out as you can see below.

See, how easy it is?  How touch can stretching a comb over wet paint be especially if it leads to a stunning visual effect?

Dapple effect in progress. Painters crush butter paper and press it onto the wall after the base paint has been applied. The patterns may look haphazard but there was a method to the madness and they were quick to press the crushed papers before the background dried up.

Spatula, one of the most popular special effects from Asian Paints, you can find it many houses and showrooms alike. A different DIY adaptation of this will be to use any object like a dried leaf  to form patterns like the one you see below.

 

I’ve used this butterfly stencil pattern in our bedroom. You can cut out any stencil pattern in a transparency sheet and then tape into the wall. Then use a clean sponge, dab it in paint (the one used here is the Asian Paints Royal Luxury Emulsion) and fill in the stencil areas. Take care not to dilute the paint, else it will leak beyond the stenciled portions. This is the easiest way to give an instant facelift to your wall.

Finally, if you are sill not sure if you’ll be able to pull this off painting thingie, don’t fret. I’ve been there before deliberating a zillion times in a my head about the color, the outcome and if I’d end up ruining a wall. But, now I think, it’s just a wall or a canvas and if it makes me incredibly happy, then why stop!  Just go for it. You could choose a patch of wall if yo are still unsure like the one below and still leave a great impression.

I’d love to see your paint experiments.

Image courtesy:

1. Sponging

2. Combing

3,4 – Mine

5,6. AsianPaints Royale Play

7 – The Sydney apartment of Gemma Cagnacci and Andrew Meehan. Photo – Gemma Cagnacci, styling / production – Lucy Feagins. via The Design Files

P.S. This is not a promotional post for Asian Paints or any other company.

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6 Comments

  1. laksh

    Hi Deepa: you’ve got a beautiful blog.

  2. Hi, I enjoyed reading your post bout different effects in painting.. Im planning to paint a tree on my kitchen wall, but Im really nervous.What if it horribly goes wrong??!! I have some idea after going through the net, but I dont know what kind of paints to choose. I was considering brown and green colors… Could u pls give some tips…

  3. laksh

    Safeena: You could use acrylic paints. As far as color go, either you could make it blend with the rest of theme or go for something contrasting /radical. This will stand out. Brown/green is standard and you can’t go wrong with it. So I’d suggest try out on a piece of paper or photoshop and then just go for it.Please do share the end result of your efforts :)

  4. ) want to know all products to choose the best one to paint my building

  5. anybody please help me out i wann do this spatula design in my new home,
    please help me out with a good contractor whos can do this
    please send me the contact number my email

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