DIY Accent Wall: Transforming Small Spaces with Premier Paint

Remember last week when I went on a helicopter ride with Canadian Tire to check out the World’s Largest Paint Swatch, and then I chose a colour from it afterwards? Well now is the time for the big reveal and a quick DIY!

I wanted to give my space a bit of an “oompf” factor without overhauling it completely, so I decided to go for an accent wall to change things up a bit. My space is currently white all over, and don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love it. But not being able to drill various shelves and frames in the wall kind of makes the space a little sterile after awhile. When the walls are bland, you start to feel bland. So what better way to change it up, than by painting an accent wall that I can easily paint back to white one day when I need to move out?

See – white, clean, and beautiful. But sterile. Something had to be done.

In order to get this DIY going, you’re going to need to get yourself a couple of things. Here’s my checklist for the perfect DIY accent wall:

• Muslin (to protect your floors from any accidental drips/pours)
• Painters’ Tape (to section off the wall that you want to paint from the rest of the room)
• Paint Tray
• Tray liner (so you that you can reuse the tray)
• Roller Cage
• Roller Refill
• Angular Brush (to trim the edges)
• Flat Brush (to cover over patches)
• Paint Can Opener
• Mixing Stick
• Premier Infinity Eggshell Finish – PR16S07 Mushroom
  • Since the wall that was to be painted was in a room with high traffic, I chose an eggshell finish so that it would be easy to maintain and wouldn’t reflect too much light off of the walls when being used as a backdrop for photos.

Once you’ve gathered all of the requisite supplies, the first thing that you’re going to want to do before anything else is to clear the space. It’s important to make sure that you don’t leave behind anything that you would mind being paint splattered on. No one really wants a perfectly white coffee table to have grey speckles all over it. It’s not a cute look.

After the room’s been cleared out, you’ll want to lay down a sheet of muslin over your floors to protect them from any potential spillage. Surprisingly I found a way to get paint onto the floors even after covering them up. Don’t ask me how, it just happened. Mistakes seem to find their way to me whether I like them or not.

The next step is to carve out the area that you will be painting with painters’ tape to protect any bleed/transfer from the paint. Try to follow the edges of your walls as closely as possible to avoid any wonky lines. I highly recommend that you go over the tape again after you’ve laid it down and gently apply pressure to the area closest to where the paint will hit to ensure that the tape is fully adhered to the surface. This will prevent the paint from bleeding through the tape and staining areas that you didn’t intend to paint. Make sure to tape over any wall sockets as well or you’ll risk the chance of accidentally painting the plates.

Once you’re done prepping the area, all that’s left to do is to open the paint can, mix up the paint, and pour it out into the tray. Remember to lay down a liner before pouring out the paint so that you can reuse the tray on a later date!

Start by carving out the edges of the walls using a paint brush to ensure that you can cover all of the knooks and crannies of the corners. Pro tip: if you’re painting near the ceiling, pour some paint onto the paint can’s lid and bring it up with you on the ladder so that you’re not constantly going up and down the ladder to dip your brush into the tray. This will also prevent any paint from dripping off your brush as you’re ascending and descending the ladder.

After carving out your edges, load your roller up with paint and start rolling up and down your wall slowly but firmly to evenly distribute the paint. It’ll come out streaky at first, but as the paint dries, it’ll settle out evenly. With Canadian Tire’s Premier paint, I didn’t have to first prime my walls or even apply a second coat. The single coat did the trick and was so simple and easy to do that I just want to paint everything now!

Surprisingly enough, I didn’t have to crack open any windows because of the no-VOCs component of the paint. I’ve always had to air out a room in the past whenever I’ve painted it to allow for all of the fumes to escape, but this was definitely not the case with Premier paint.

Can we also talk about how quickly the paint dried? Within hours of us completing the wall, we were already putting all of the furniture back into their respective places. Isn’t that crazy? I was full on expecting to have to vacate the room for a full day before being able to move anything back into it. But nope, all was well after about 3 hours of allowing the paint to dry.

We removed the tape and voila! A completed accent wall! At a quick glance, it doesn’t seem like much of the room has changed, since the grey that I chose is so light. But the overall ambience of the room is a little warmer now that the walls are a couple of shades darker. It’s strange how such a slight difference can truly change up the feeling of a room.

Kobe seemed to enjoy the entire process as well since it wasn’t intrusive on his life. So if he’s happy with the result, I’m happy as well!

This post was sponsored by: Canadian Tire