DIY: Adding Drama with a Painted Arch

A prison cell

So my daughter's room in Villa Ardilla was a bit of a prison cell. Stark white, a cupboard and bars in front of the window. It's not terribly big, so we couldn't exactly go nuts with funky styling either. The cupboard is huge (yay) but fixed. The bed was intended (I guess) to sit against the back wall, judging from the light switches and electricity points on either side of the wall. Except that, if you did place a bed there, with a bedside table (to operate said light switch) you couldn't open the cupboard anymore. Not sure about the spatial planning capabilities of the previous builder / electrician.

BEFORE

Either way, my daughter (9) preferred her bed against the window anyway so that immediate problem was solved. Except for the prison cell bit. Given it's a summer country home, the last thing you want to feel is as if you're being locked up!

So we urgently needed to inject some personality into this space.

Girly yet sophisticated

If it had been up to my daughter the entire room would have been hot pink, but given others might want to sleep in this room too, we settled somewhere in the middle upon relatively neutral colours, with some added drama and some girly art. We opted for the same base colour as we had already used in the dining room (read more here). Stunning, and it adds instant warmth to the place.

My daughter already proved to me she was an excellent painter, and a true helper, so together we set off to paint. My son decided that the roller was great fun. So the girls did the cutting in (me high, she low) and my son followed with the roller. Very efficient!

Now for the drama

My daughter had her mind set on an arch on the wall. Now I have to admit that drawing perfect circles is not my strong suit! But surely I wasn't going to tell her and fall off my motherhood pedestal. I took a pin, a string and a pencil. We measured out the middle of the wall, where we wanted the centre of the arch to be. That's where we pinned the string, and (while holding the pin in place) drew a perfect circle on the wall with a pencil attached to the other side of the string.

Then I grabbed a spirit level and drew perfectly straight lines down from the outer points of the circle. Then I coloured in the outer lines with perfect precision (even if I say so myself) with a dark egg plant colour. My daughter thought I was a super hero. Winning on many levels!

From that point onwards it was easy. We filled in the arch, added a second coat and voila, visual interest added!

Skateboard art

My daughter had already picked her art for this room, many moons ago. In fact, you can read all about HYLUS skateboard art here. Hanging them is super easy, with the easy mounting system, if it wasn't for the massive stone walls of a Mediterranean Villa that makes the drill smoke in disgust. But we got there in the end, and mounted the three chosen skate boards in perfect fashion.

End result

The end result is a completely transformed room. And all we did, in the end, is paint, and hang some artwork. A piece of cake but the room went from drab to fab in a matter of days.

No more prison cell, but my daughter still won't leave her room now. She loves it! It's girly yet sophisticated and she's feeling very grown up. This room doubles as a guest room and I personally would be very happy sleeping here.

What do you think?

Liefs, Marieke

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