Pleasantly surprised by stencils

We have a space around a window in our living room that was really calling out for some pizazz. I collected lots of wallpaper samples, but since we're still laboring through removing decades-old wallpaper upstairs, we were hesitant to contribute more wallpaper to the house. A friend recommended we stencil the space, an idea she'd seen on Esty. We were definitely skeptical but decided it was a low-risk move to order a stencil online from Cutting Edge Stencils, especially since our friend had experience with stenciling. When it arrived, said friend was invited over to help, but when she and her husband arrived, we learned none of us knew what we were doing. Luckily, we're all quick learners and not perfectionists. :-)

Here's the space a few months ago right after the bookcases were installed.

And here we are working on the top portion. (I'm supervising and the process was aided by college football, pizza, and our friend's home brew!)

 

 

And once we finished, we were actually pretty pleased with the wall. The gold really warms up the blue room. Now we just need drapes to literally warm up the room!