I am so happy to announce that the saw has finally left the living room! Which means once the brick feature wall is complete (hopefully this weekend) the cleaning will begin and the decorating and moving in will start!
We have one room finished (minus the decorating and moving in part) The office/closet room was finished this week. We did a little diy on the back of the office wall too. I wanted to use wall paper so that it was a little prettier than the rest of the room, but I looked everywhere for one that I LOVED, but I found out it is really hard to find a grey/purple wall paper (that was averagely priced. Many were beautiful but out of my budget) So instead a friend turned me to a stencil. She had done a beautiful application around her fireplace.

Check out http://www.cuttingedgestencils.com/  The shipping was fasts and the cost of both the stencil and shipping was reasonable (about $55) and it was fairly easy to apply. The end result was not as clean and neat as wall paper would have been, but its cute and it was fun without the mess and hassle of wallpaper.
See the steps below.

What the finished product claims to look like

You will need your new stencil

Spray adhesive

Latex paint (quart is more than enough)

Small sponge roller

Painters tape

I pre-painted the wall a light grey for the background colour (the rest of the room is the same colour)

Make sure your wall is free from any dust or dirt a tack cloth is good for that

You may need a friend to help you start off (thanks Candace!) 

The stencil becomes really sticky so you may need another pair of hand in the beginning to line everything up  

Start in a corner of the wall you are stenciling

Spray your stencil with a light coat of adhesive-too much and you'll take the paint off the wall

I made that mistake!

Lightly stick the stencil on the wall

Use the painters tape stick the corners and side a little better 

(The spray glue was getting really sticky, so after the 1st two blocks I stopped spraying and just used the tape)

When you begin rolling the trick is to use a little bit of paint and do many coats. So roll your roller through the paint sparingly and then use a piece of cardboard to roll off the excess paint. You may need to do 3 thin coats.

Carefully peel off your stencil and move down to the next area.

Line up your pattern and roll again

Keep going until the entire are is patterned

In the stencil kit there are extra pieces to go along the ceiling. With the pattern I used, everything lined up perfectly and I didn't need to use it

The end result! 

The picture looks super, but in person you'd see that the pattern didn't come out as clean as I had hoped. In hind sight, if I took my time and made sure every area of the stencil stuck to the wall and each layer dreid completely before I did another coat, it may have been a lot better. However, it was really easy and only took 2.5hours. Plus, I intend to put up shelving on the wall and it will cover up a few of the "less neat" spots. 

I am pleased with this DIY so I think I will try to make a light for my dining room next!

Happy Friday Everyone!