Cheap + Easy Weekend Project: Hand Painted Accent Wall

A hand painted accent wall is the perfect alternative to overspending on wallpaper. I’m sharing how I spent 30 minutes this weekend to hand paint an accent wall in our laundry room for under $30!

I’ve had this hand painted accent wall project on my to-do list for quite some time. Our laundry room was the first room in our house to get a facelift and that meant that it was done easy and quick. While it’s much better than the original look, I still felt like it needed a little something!

I love the idea of wallpaper but I just wasn’t sure about the in’s and outs of it and to be honest, I much prefer a very simple project with a quick transformation!

A hand painted accent wall is a great alternative to using wallpaper. It’s much easier, and quite a bit cheaper. I wanted an accent wall because I knew that it would add just the amount of character to the laundry room that I was looking for without paying for a huge renovation.

Choose a Pattern for Your Hand Painted Accent Wall

First, I started by selecting a pattern for my hand painted accent wall. There are a lot of options for patterns and some that are more complex than others. I looked into doing a stenciled pattern (a little more complex), and ultimately decided that I wanted to do something freehand. I knew that if I didn’t end up loving it that I could just paint over it and start again without wasting a ton of money!

I ended up picking this dashed pattern for a few reasons. My friend, Heather, at Interior Swag had done a similar pattern in her bathroom for a small accent wall and I loved how it just looked so fun and fresh. I shopped around on Pinterest for some ideas for other patterns. I loved the herringbone pattern and a few other more boho patterns, but I felt like they would be a little more complex and remember – I wanted to keep it simple and quick!

If you’re looking into doing a hand painted accent wall, I wanted to link to a few of my favorite ones that have been done by some of my blogging friends! So here are a few!

Pick a Good Paint Color

Our laundry room is painted in Sherwin Williams Dorian Gray. It takes on a bit more of a tannish/brown hue in the small laundry room we have. It’s a nice warm neutral gray and I like it for that room. I knew a crisp white would be perfect for the pattern color.

You will want to make sure whatever color you pick for your hand painted accent wall contrasts well with your base color. The color I chose for our hand painted accent wall is called Polar Bear by Behr.

I went in for a sample pot but I learned that it was too neutral of a color to be tinted in a sample pot, so I just committed to a quart. It cost me $20 and was the most expensive purchase for this project. The quart is definitely WAY TOO much but I didn’t want to just do a bright white for this project, so I figured it was worth getting what I wanted.

Just Get Started

Here’s a list of the materials I used for this project:

1 Quart Behr Marquee White Paint (the color I used is called Polar Bear)
1 inch paint brush

Thats it! Simple right? Almost seems like there is something I am forgetting, but I am not!

It can be a little nerve racking thinking about hand painting a pattern on a wall, but don’t let that stop you. Just get started! Once I took the first leap and started painting, I stepped back and examined the progress to make sure I was happy with what I was doing.

It only took about thirty minutes to complete the entire project from start to finish. And really, the most time consuming part was stopping to make sure I could get some good “in progress shots.”

There were a few times when I worried the pattern was going to be too imperfect, but that actually didn’t matter. When I stepped away to look at how it was coming along, the imperfections seemed to be what gave it the most character.

If you look closely in the upper left hand corner, you’ll see my first stroke was a little too thick for what I wanted. I changed it up from there and started with a thinner, longer stroke that looked a little less “perfect”.

To make it easier, I didn’t paint behind the dryer and just took the pattern right to the edge. It’s not like we are ever going to rearrange the laundry room so I didn’t worry about that.

The Final Product

I couldn’t be happier with how fantastic this turned out! If I had known how simple it was going to be, I probably would have knocked it out a lot sooner! I love how the patterned wall pops against the rest of the room and just adds a touch of character to make this space more “us”.

I describe my personal style as a mix of boho and farmhouse. This hand painted accent wall blends perfectly with the wood pipe shelves we built for this room. Together they are the combination of boho and farmhouse this space needed!

Decorating and styling your home for your OWN personal preferences is the way to go and will be the thing that makes you the most content in the long run. It’s so important for you to discover what that is and then create a home that speaks to that on your behalf.

If you love this post, I think you also might like these other DIY Home Decor Posts!