Feature walls can add something special to a room, but creating a unique and stylish design can cost a fortune.
But one woman has managed to achieve her perfect feature wall and give her kitchen a new lease of life – and she only spent £12 in the process.
Victoria McIntyre, 33, a neurological nurse and mum of two from Perthshire, wanted to brighten up her kitchen.
She used £12 of frog tape and paint to add a modern brick-effect wall and she thinks it looks fantastic.
‘I’ve just returned to work from maternity leave, so carrying out DIY projects during lockdown with a small child and a baby has definitely come with its challenges,’ Victoria tells money-saving community LatestDeals.co.uk.
‘My husband was working from home throughout lockdown so getting stuck into redecorating at night times felt somewhat like an escape from the madness.
‘Myself and my husband came up with this idea to brighten up our kitchen after I had already transformed three bathrooms.
‘We liked the idea of using frog tape but wanted to try something different other than your typical geometric walls which are very popular right now.’
Victoria says that they could have achieved a similar effect using wallpaper, but the couple aren’t a big fan.
‘It’s not as easy to simply change when you decide on a new colour scheme, and of course it would have been far more expensive,’ she explains.
‘We have a brick tile splashback throughout the kitchen so we decided if we were to do a brick effect wall we would prefer if the “bricks” were the same size as those in the kitchen. That’s where things got a lot more complex.’
The feature wall was a deep grey to begin with, so Victoria had to start by applying a few coats of white as a base coat prior to any frog taping being applied.
‘I initially thought it would be a case of frog taping off horizontal lines along the white wall but quickly discovered the walls were slightly off, despite this being a new build house,’ she says.
‘Each horizontal line had to be added to the wall using a measuring tape and spirit level. This is well worth taking your time with as if the lines are off even a by a few millimetres you will end up with a wavy effect rather than brick effect.
‘The vertical lines were added one by one using a spare wall tile we had. It took six hours of frog taping, only 10 minutes of painting it and about 40 seconds removing all that frog tape.’
To achieve the brick effect, Victoria simply poured her grey paint into a paint tray and using a deep fluffy roller, ran it through the paint with very little pressure so she never absorbed too much paint on the roller.
‘We then very firmly ran it back and forth over the entire wall,’ she says. ‘We utilised a natural sea sponge for the edges to fill the gaps where the roller could not reach.
‘The aim was to cover the entire wall with as little paint as possible to create an almost porous effect to mimic that of your typical brick.
‘We already had plenty of white paint at home so to achieve the whole look it only cost me a total of £12.
‘The £12 was spent on two rolls of frog tape and a small tester pot of deep grey paint. I was able to get frog tape and a small tester pot of grey paint very easily by ordering online from my local Crown Paint store during the lockdown.’
Victoria was delighted with the finished result of her project and says the brick wall brings a unique flair to her kitchen.
‘There was a point right before we pulled off the frog tape where my husband and I thought, “oh no, if this looks ridiculous we have no choice but to paint over it in solid grey!, but fortunately enough we both loved it,’ she says.
‘We both think it adds a unique look to the kitchen.
‘The greatest thing of all was it only cost me a total of £12. I hadn’t thought about the cost much before starting but I would never have expected that it would only cost that.
‘I then figured that if it was a total disaster then at least it wasn’t an expensive one.
‘Thankfully we both think it looks great – it really brightened up the kitchen and gave the illusion of it being bigger.
‘Anyone who has been in our home since doing it has had nothing but really great comments on it, which is really nice.’
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Get in touch: metrolifestyleteam@metro.co.uk.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/10/30/woman-creates-clever-feature-wall-in-her-kitchen-using-12-of-frog-tape-13505862/
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