How to Paint a Diamond Accent Wall

May 11, 2013
Housewarming/MBA Graduation Party

Since I had moved from a one bedroom apartment to a 3 bedroom house with a loft, I had a significant amount of empty space and needed to find a purpose for each room.

The room of the day has mirrored doors, perfect for selfies and what else but an exercise room?!  Because of course, if I have an exercise room that means I will actually exercise.  Right?

Uhm.  No. Ok.  So the exercising didn't really happen much upstairs.  It got way too hot and was better downstairs in the family room.  Although, who am I kidding?!  The exercising has only happened a couple of times anyways.

The room did serve as a great kids room for future roommates though since it had some fun colors.

Onto the painting...I've seen this design prepped many ways including making diagonal tape lines across the whole wall.  To save tape and be sure my diamonds were touching instead of having any space between them, I decided to go another route.

Step 1: Paint the Trim and Base Color
I chose to use white as the base color for my wall so the diamonds would not make the room look too dark.  Because of this, I was able to paint the trim and walls all at once without having to do any extra taping.  I again used my favorite America's Finest paints tinted to Aspen White.

Step 2: Mark Your Dots
Before marking my dots on the wall, I measured the wall and drew an outline on a piece of paper.  I then divided to figure out how many diamonds I would need if I wanted 3 rows and I wanted the length to be double the width of the diamond. Once the diagram was complete, I put the dots on the wall, one dot for every corner of the diamonds.

Step 3: Apply the Tape
I used blue painter's tape to outline the dots, making sure to put the tape on the outside of the diamond.

Step 4: Painting the First Set

I chose to paint pink as my first color. As soon as I finished painting the diamonds I removed the tape that way there was no chance of drying and peeling the paint off of the wall.  One thing I did notice is that because my walls are textured, there was a bit of a fuzzy line on all of the edges of the paint.  If I were to do this project again, I would caulk the inside tape lines of the diamonds prior to painting so the lines would be more precise. 

Step 5: Taping for the Second Color

After painting the pink diamonds, I let the wall dry completely while heading outside to put together a new porch swing. Once the diamonds were dry, I was able to tape once from one pink corner to another making sure to tape over the pink so the corners would match up. 

Step 6: Painting the Second Set

Then, I used green to paint the new diamonds, leaving a white row of diamonds every other row both horizontally or vertically. I did the bottom two rows first because after painting the pink diamonds I realized the paint was drying faster than I could get the tape off. So for the green, I did the bottom two rows first because I could reach them and finish them pretty quickly.  Then I removed the tape and finished the top row. 

Step 7: Diamond Accent
I also added a diamond accent to the wall across from the wall I'd been painting to tie the colors across to the other side of the room.

 Step 8: Finishing Touches
Once the paint was completely dry, I reapplied all outlet and switch covers.

My Paint Preference

I mentioned on a previous post that I prefer Glidden's Ultra-Hide 770 semi-gloss paint, formerly called America's Finest.

Here are five reasons why:

• With other paints, when applying a second coat, the first coat begins to peal back up.  This paint has never had that issue for me. 
• This paint is cheap for gallon size.  $18/gallon.  With how often I paint, it needs to be cheap.
• The coverage this paint provides is great!  Covering over a similar color only takes one coat and covering over a color outside of the color pallet takes only 2 coats!  Unless of course you are painting white over a color. 
• Semi-gloss paint is more reflective than flat paint and brightens up the house.  (Tip - put semi-gloss paint on your ceiling to make your space look larger. 
• Semi-gloss paint is easy to wipe clean. 

Freshen Up

Just for laughs, here's my first picture in my new home!  At 23 years old I was as excited as can be given that my 1500 sq ft 3 bed, 2.5 bath house was going to cost me approximately the same amount as my 600 sq ft. 1 bed, 1 bath apartment.  

And so it begins: 

April 4, 2013 - Day 1 - continued

Move in meant time to paint!  The goal for the first week was to paint the entire downstairs including the ceiling (except the bathroom) and to paint my bedroom. 

At move in, the entire house was painted in beige paint, a color that would work for me.  The only problem is that the house was painted completely in flat paint, except for a few random touch ups of semi-gloss that looked quite out of place.  Being a lover of sun and shimmer and of course easy cleaning, I went out and bought some semi-gloss paint.  

Before picture:  Used in the listing

I'd already done my share of painting before purchasing my home so I knew my brand preference for paint. I chose America's Finest Semi Gloss paint, which has since been re-branded to Glidden Ultra-Hide 770.  I like this paint because it covers well, and is pretty cheap at approximately $18/gallon. 

With a table being the only piece of furniture in the house, I painted the entire downstairs - with help because it's always faster with more than two hands. I even added a blue accent wall.

A helpful hint when painting is always paint the trim first.  Just tape off the floor, and begin painting.  Don't worry about getting any of the paint from the trim on the walls because you will be painting them.  

Once the trim dries, cover it with painter's tape to protect it from the new wall color. 

Now that the painting downstairs was complete, I just needed to wait for the new carpeting to come in before I could start moving everything.