apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I love the "Bare Tree" stencil, especially in those shimmering colors. It's subtly romantic- I'd love to surround my four-post bed in it.

They're all nice, but I like the first one best. Boy....to do the entire walls in stencil must be really painstaking! When it's done right, it's well worth the effort.

Beautiful effects. So much better than I have seen before.

I really love the subtle effect of the trees. It has the effect of a shadow cast by sunlight through a window.

I can't imagine doing a whole wall! It was torture doing a border in our kitchen, and less than a year later it was remodeled and my hard work was lost. It's so much work to put in to something to be painted over.

But the advantage is that it can be easily painted over when you tire of it or are moving (as opposed to wallpaper). I love the second one with the trees! Sadly, I don't think I'd have the patience to do any of these.

#4 is such a gorgeous bedroom.

My landlady had the patience to stencil and faux-finish the dining room. Unfortunately, it's not my taste and I find the many patterns - brick above the chair rail, creeping ivy vines along top border and along corners and switchplates, gloss/matte vertical stripes below the chair rail - to be a bit much. She won't let us paint over it, though she said we could paint every other room in the house! I think it's not so easy to paint over it once you commit that much time to it.

I made a simple stencil & did the entryway in our last apartment & loved the result... in case anyone is interested:
http://withflourish.blogspot.com/2008/10/fauxpaper-aka-fun-with-stencils.html

It actually went fairly quickly (my husband even helped, and he is not artistic). I could see all the imperfections (which helped to add to the charm, I think, but friends couldnt believe that it wasnt wallpaper! :)

Those are lovely examples. I am not a fan of borders, whether stencil or wallpaper, but full wall treatments are nice, in the right space. (I think I'd aim at a small focal wall, though, for obvious reasons!)

I love the trees. Wish I could think af a suitable spot in my house, but alas! Nothing comes to mind.

SherryB, I'd totally do that in a powder room. I remember the little half bath by the front door being the only wallpapered room in our house. It's small, so it's not that much of a time commitment or cost.

Oh, I forgot about the grasscloth wallpaper in the dining room! That was required by law in the 70s, though. Heh.

Nicole, that is stunning!

I stencilled the Bare Trees for the photograph in the feature above (Thank you Appt Therapy). It took just over two hours. It is very easy to apply as long as a light coat of spray repositioning adhesive is used to hold the stencil in place. I used a foam roller to apply the silver paint. The Bare Trees stencil comes from www.stencil-library.com and was featured on the planet stencil blog www.designinspiration.typepad.com