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I have long admired the beautiful stencils sold by Cutting Edge Stencils. I love their beautiful patterns and could imagine what a statement they would make!

I have looked and looked and looked at their site trying to decide which stencil I thought fit in with my house best.

A gorgeous damask? Sigh!

A spectacular chevron? Can I?

Or this delicious quatrefoil? Beautiful.

After months of staring at their website and pondering I ordered the Rabbat Allover Stencil (Large Scale) in late October.

With two funerals and the holidays, there was no time to play. So when I realized there was a window of opportunity, I jumped on it! I needed to pretty up my powder room. We chose to have our house painted all white. When I look through magazines, I am drawn to all white rooms, and we love it (although we are slowly adding selective amounts of color to the walls). The powder room seemed to tower with the skinny space (4’ x 9’), 9’ ceilings and all white walls. It needed a little something to ground the walls.

And so I went to work…

It really is fairly easy, just a bit time consuming. There are great instructions and a video on the Cutting Edge Stencil website. But here are a few things I learned:

• Even if you haven’t stenciled before you can do this (I am an example of that).
• If you paint your base coat with a semi-gloss paint, you will get a fun shimmery contract with your top coat, but your sponge roller will slide. This may mean it takes you longer to do.
• I cleaned my stencil 3 or 4 times to keep my lines nice. You can see when they are not as crisp.
• Be careful to not have too much paint in your roller. Roll on a paper towel to get excess paint off.
• Do the centers first and cut in the edges all at once.
• I found I had to wait a few minutes after I moved the stencil down to begin rolling so that I didn’t get paint on the back of the stencil.
• How long did it take? A couple of days, a little at a time.
• Would I do it again? Yes. I would like to do a wall in my mud/laundry room before the lockers are in. I have a step stool that would be cute as well.
• Clean up: I am a messy “stenciler” (apparently) and had to go back with a paint brush and clean up where the stencil wasn’t flat and paint oozed under. (I figured out my technique about half way through. It was much better after that)
• I would lightly mist with spray adhesive to help the stencil stay flat.
• Ladders will scratch the enamel off the toilet (don’t ask)!

Try it! You know me. I think we are capable of anything we put our minds to. If you have been wanting to try it – DO! You will be so happy with the results and feel really great about yourself at the same time!

I will show you how I finished my powder room now that the paint job is finished after tomorrow’s Good Things Utah segment.