

A Step-By-Step Guide To Painting A DIY Accent Wall In Your Home
I know that during this quarantine phase, everyone has taken on a love for at-home DIY project––including me and my husband. We first started with our patio and now our family room. We got it painted last year and to be honest, I don't know what I was thinking when I had my accent wall painted blue. Well, I take that back, I do know what I was thinking.
I was trying to bring the "beach" to my home by having my accent wall blue (like the sea), the outside walls grey, and my kitchen beige (the sand). But after some time passed, I wasn't fond of the idea. Plus, my husband started working on the floor and never finished. Hey, I give him his props he did start, but the floor hasn't been finished... and it's been a year!
With that in mind, I put on my creative cap and got to work on giving my living room a total makeover.
This was my step-by-step process on elevating my home with a DIY accent wall:
Here's what you'll need:
- 1-gallon white paint
- 2 thick paint brushes
- 2 large paint rollers
- 2 small paint rollers
- 1 steady hand
- 2-3 rolls of frog painters tape (Lowes guy said it works better than the blue tape)
- 3 paint buckets
- A couple of old blankets to cover the floor
- 1 ladder
- 1 measuring device
- 1 pencil
Being home, I was able to allow my creative juices to flow thinking of how I wanted to change my family room. I wanted to keep the grey theme and didn't want to do a lot of work, if you know what I mean. So I started looking up different ideas for accent walls. I did toy with the idea of wallpaper but my husband wasn't down with that plan. I also was thinking about painting it just one solid grey color, but that would be too plain for the vibe I was going for.
I took to Pinterest and saw a chevron print and fell in love. Y'all, I looked high and low for a chevron print stencil and I've seen others do their walls with a stencil, but I couldn't find one large enough. The small ones would have taken days maybe even weeks to finish. My husband is an Architect Designer, so I asked him if he thought he would be able to do it with tape and he was like, "Oh yeah, I can do that!"
Step Two: Painting
We first had to paint the wall white. Thank God for my husband because I was going to do it all backwards. I was going to tape it then paint it white, my husband informed me that if we did it that way, we would be painting for days and then it wouldn't have looked right.
Step Three: Taping
Next up is taping. I am going to be honest I didn't know that "math" was going to be involved. I seriously thought that all we had to do was put tape up in zigzags. Again I thank God for my husband who brought me back to reality real quick.
You need to measure your wall from top-to-bottom and side-to-side. It's important for you to have in mind how many patterns you want. I wanted six in total. So my husband measured and taped the wall according to his measurements. Keep in mind that everyone's measurements will be different because it's according to your wall size.
Now here is where the math comes into place again. To get the chevron print, you have to place the tape on the wall in a zigzag shape. My husband measured for each zigzag to be two-feet apart. And you follow this throughout the entire wall following the taped-off sections, moving from top to bottom.
Step Four: Fill In The Blanks
Now, this is where the fun and intense part starts! You need to have your two colors picked out. I chose a light grey and a darker grey. Go over with a pencil in each zigzag and write in the color you want to paint in each zag. Use your roller to paint the color in each section. To make it easier, my husband had one color and I had another, that way we didn't get it mixed up.
Be careful and don't go too fast you can mess up easily if you're not paying attention! After you have done this, let it dry for a little bit. Then, you carefully take the paint off and boom!
The Final Reveal
Can you say WOW? It doesn't even look like the same room. If you ask me, it looks like something out of the Southern Living Magazine! We did that!
Featured image by Tamron Little.
Tamron can be best described as a millennial southern lady lving her best life as a cancer survivor! Tamron inspires the everyday woman through faith, lifestyle, and her passion for fashion! Her goal is to encourage women through her testimony while sharing her light and life as a working mom, and wife.
Wife • Mom • Influencer
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Idris Elba Was 'Done With Love' Before Meeting Wife Sabrina: 'Here Was Someone Who Was Just So Genuine'
Since Idris Elba and Sabrina Dhwore Elba's debut as a couple in 2017, they have become the embodiment of relationship goals.
Aside from the pair displaying their love in various viral social media posts and their collaborative projects, such as their Coupledom podcast, genderless skincare brand S'Able Labs, and humanitarian efforts, Idris and Sabrina have showcased over the years how love with the right partner can transform one's perspective on life and empower an individual to achieve their desires.
Idris and Sabrina's love story began in early 2017 in Vancouver when the actor worked on Mountain Between Us. The pair would cross paths at a jazz bar one night, and as fate would have it, their lives would be forever changed for the better.
In a recent joint interview with Esquire magazine, the now-married couple opened up about that fateful night and how their love has inspired them to become better versions of themselves.
Idris and Sabrina On The Night They Met
In the discussion, Sabrina, who was a student at the time and working at a bar, revealed that her chance encounter with Idris almost didn't happen because she was exhausted from working. Still, due to it being her friend's birthday, Sabrina decided to go out and "ended up meeting this perfect guy."
"I had been working long shifts all week and was exhausted, but it was my friend's birthday, so I went out and ended up meeting this perfect guy. It all felt a bit like fate," she said.
On the other hand, Idris shared that upon meeting Sabrina, he had just gotten out of a relationship and wasn't looking to be with anyone. But following their brief interaction, the Luther: Fallen Sun star knew she was different.
"When I met Sabrina, I was coming out of a relationship, and I was done with love. I was in a headspace where I was thinking: 'I was born alone, and I'll die alone,'" he stated. "But then I met this really intelligent, smart, beautiful, and funny person who was so unaffected by things—it was so refreshing. I come from an industry where people all too easily become self-important, and here was someone who was just so genuine and positive and…themselves. It was great for me."
Idris and Sabrina On How Their Lives Have Changed After Meeting
Further in the interview, Sabrina expressed that after meeting Idris, building a relationship with him, and ultimately getting married in 2019, her life has significantly changed because he has helped her feel invincible in anything she tackles personally and professionally.
"My life massively changed after that night too. With Idris, everything is so exciting and every day can bring something new. I still feel like I want to spend every waking minute with him. He made, and still makes, me feel like there is nothing I can't accomplish," she explained.
Idris would add that on the night they met, he asked Sabrina about her modeling pursuits for a skincare brand and why she hadn't thought about owning one in an attempt to expand her mind to the endless possibilities that her career could go.
Sabrina mentioned that Idris' way of thinking had inspired her to dream bigger and aspire for more, which she hasn't experienced with anyone else.
"It's always that way with Idris. He's such a blue sky thinker. He always dreams bigger and grander," she stated. "At first, I would roll my eyes, but now I have adopted that mentality, where I can see myself somewhere I never would have been able to before. It's one of my favorite things about him, and I tell him all the time. I've never met a dreamer like him. Idris could probably wake up one day and fly just because he willed himself to do it!"
Sabrina wrapped up the conversation by sharing that having Idris open her eyes to what she could accomplish as a Black woman in society has helped "empower" her and made her feel that she could use her voice.
"When someone opens your eyes to the possibilities, then you start to feel the waves. As a black woman, growing up, you often feel like your opinion can be squashed. 'Don't talk too loud, or too much'. It's not like anyone ever told me not to, but certainly, I have never been encouraged to," she expressed. "It was a big shift in my life when Idris' attitude started changing my way of thinking. It empowered me and made [me] realize that I can use my voice."
To this day, Idris and Sabrina continue to break down barriers in the industry and be an inspiration for those seeking to be the next power couple being honest about their journey.
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Feature image by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue