I can’t believe I haven’t posted about this project until now! I actually did this awhile ago and never shared. Oops! Anyway, here’s the geometric style accent wall I painted for my daughter’s room. It uses blue, pink, green, white, and purple paint and I’m really happy with how it turned out.
The rest of the room is just painted white so the accent wall really stands out. We also painted the trim around the windows, and tried to camouflage the old sconces in with the wall too. They’re going eventually, but we haven’t bothered to replace them yet since they do work fine. They’re cute enough in a kid’s room anyway.
My daughter has the smallest bedroom in the house, mostly because it was originally a loft area that we closed in to make into a bedroom. In hindsight, I wish we’d finished the basement first and given her my office so the loft could have stayed open, but it’s fine.
Anyway, I decided to paint an accent wall to make her room more fun and to help it feel larger.
How to Paint a Geometric Accent Wall Step by Step
Painting this accent wall in my daughter’s room was super easy! There’s just a lot of steps that can be tedious, especially the taping and painting parts.
I also painted an accent wall section above the fireplace, check it out here.
Supplies Needed
- Large can of paint, for base coat
- Multiple small pots of paint, for the accent wall
- Primer (optional)
- Good quality painter’s tape in your desired width (I use Frog Tape)
- Sanding block
- Large paint rollers (for the walls, I also have an extender for mine)
- Mini paint rollers (for the accent wall – save time by buying one for each colour of paint)
- Good quality paint brushes in various sizes
- Craft paint brush (for touch ups)
- Ladder or step stool
1. Choose Your Paint Colours
This is the most important part. I recommend choosing paint colours that coordinate. Either choose multiple shades of one colour from the same paint chip/colour family, or choose different colours that are the same tone.
You’ll also need a base colour for the stripes (I suggest white), and paint for the other walls if you plan to repaint the whole room.
If you want dark lines instead of white
If you’re painting light colours on your accent wall but want the lines to be dark, you’ll have to do things differently. Instead of painting the base layer your dark colour, instead prime the wall with a white paint. Then paint your accent wall per the instructions below. You’ll have to add an extra step once it’s all dry to paint the lines dark, do this by taping them off to protect your accent wall colours and carefully painting your lines the dark colour with a brush.
2. Buy Paint (How Much Paint Do You Need to Do an Accent Wall?)
I used the smaller (1qt) cans for the bright colours and had plenty left over. For most accent walls, depending again on how many colours and how big your wall is, you’ll probably be OK with either quarts or even the smaller “tester” size paint cans.
For the rest of the room and base coat on the accent wall, we used 1 gallon of white paint. The size of your room will affect how much paint you need, of course.
We also used some Bulls Eye 1-2-3 paint for the trim.
3. Start Painting the Base Coat
Paint any trim that needs it, fill holes, and apply a base coat of paint to the accent wall. If you’re painting the whole room, you can do that now too. We just did white throughout the whole space and used that as our base coat for the accent wall.
You may want to prime your walls first, especially since primer is usually cheaper than paint.
Do as many coats as needed and let the paint dry completely.
4. Tape Off Accent Wall Design
Once your base coat is completely dry it’s time to create your accent wall design! First of all, I recommend using good quality tape for this. If you cheap out it’s harder to get crisp lines.
You can plan your design beforehand by sketching it out, or just start taping freehand like I did.
Once the tape has been applied how you like it, take a soft sanding block and sand the edges of the tape. This will prevent any paint from sneaking under and give you more crisp lines when you’re done.
Note: I forgot to do this on mine so I had to do a bunch of touch ups.
5. Paint Your Geometric Accent Wall
Arrange the colours any way you want! Just avoid having two of the same colours adjacent to each other. I tried to balance out the larger and smaller shapes so that there was an even amount of colour on the wall, but you can decide how you want your colours to go.
Try not to get too much paint on the tape if you can help it, that way there’s less chance of it peeling the paint off with it.
Add more coats as needed.
6. Let It Dry Completely Then Remove Tape
I know you’re excited to see how the design turned out, but don’t rush this step! Let the paint dry completely before removing the tape. To remove tape, start peeling firmly in the opposite direction.
Don’t pull to the sides, go straight along the tape line. Pulling wrong can sometimes make the tape take some of the paint along with it.
7. Touch Ups
Once you have the tape off, use a small brush to do any touch ups if necessary. That’s it, you’re done!
Here it is with the curtains:
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