how to create a gold geometric feature wall in 20 minutes...and it's removable! ~ Make Do and DIY

Hi guys, I hope you all had a happy Christmas, I certainly did! I kinda feel like I neglected my "blogger duties" by not posting more about my decorations etc but I really just couldn't manage it. There was hot chocolate to drink, walks to take, baking to be done!

And a whooooole lot of whining and complaining about said activities to listen to. Expectations don't often tally with reality when it involves small children ;P

So sorry (not sorry) ;) I promise to do better next year, I swear it on my hot glue gun (which is about as close to a bible as you're going to get around here)

I was in a bit of a funk diy-wise the last two months. With so much going on in the run up to Christmas and two small people running around here all day it was really hard to even keep the place fit for habitation, never mind actually improving it! It was so frustrating to keep passing things I wanted to do and just not being able to give them any of my time. I'm not good at leaving things unfinished, especially once I've decided what needs to be done, so it was a bit tortuous, but now all the hoo-ha is over I can get down to work. The creative urge back with a vengeance! So much so that when Gavin unsuspectingly went upstairs half an hour before me last night I decided to do a feature wall behind the tv.

The poor man is constantly stumbling on "improvements" he didn't know were happening!

This is what I started with:

And less than half an hour later I had this:

The colours in the "before" photo are much truer to life. I've had to revert to phone photos for this one I'm afraid!

Yep. Just like that. I think he's used to not being consulted at this stage so he just did the sensible thing and said he loved it, but the beauty of this is it's totally removable and it won't damage the paint (I lifted and re-positioned that tape many times while I was doing it, no problem).

For over a year I'd been looking at that wall, trying to decide what to do with it. I kind of wanted to minimise the impact the black tv had against the blush pink wall (it's "at the barre" by Valspar) so for a long time I thought I'd end up putting a gallery wall around it, and hope that the tv would stand out less if it was surrounded by lots of other black frames. So I started collecting frames and pieces of art that I wanted to incorporate into it, and for months we had a growing pile of crap gathering on the sideboard around the tv. And the more I thought about it, and tried to imagine what frames would go where, the more I thought it was going to look really....crowded! This is a small, narrow room. There is already art up on the opposite walls, and lately I've been craving something a bit less cluttered. Maybe it's having all the Christmas decorations everywhere, making everything feel a bit cluttered and dusty, but I just suddenly wanted that wall done sooooo bad, and I wanted it clean and crisp.

So, what to do? I was sitting watching the Liberace movie with Matt Damon in it and it hit me......gold tape.

I've found that in at least 50% of cases in this house tape is the answer. (The other 50% of time the answer seems to be "just ignore it and hope it goes away"). And I'm not sure if I was inspired by Liberace and should recommend you watch that movie if you find yourself stuck in a decor rut, but it couldn't hurt right?!

It would be quick, easy, and reversible if I didn't like it, so I grabbed the same roll of foil tape I used on the dishwasher and just went to town. I started taping lines and stood back every few minutes to see if I liked it. I'm sure if you did a bit of math and measured things out you could create something really beautiful and intricate, but off the cuff is more my style ;)

I searched Ebay for "gold foil tape" and found this

ORDER TOTAL

Orde

So there you have it, twenty minutes and about €2 worth of tape later I have a wall that's "finished". It's got a big impact while still being subtle enough not o overpower the room.

I'm really, really happy with it, but I knew I would be from the minute I slapped on the first strip of tape. This was one of those projects that had me really excited from the start cos I just knew it would work out really well. It's been a while since I had one of those!

And the beauty of using tape is there are so many possibilities! Of course, if you're worried about damaging the paint then you need to stick to the gentler types of tape, but if that isn't an issue for you then the choices are endless. All colours and patterns of washi tape, black electrical tape for a monochrome scheme, black or gold duck tape for a wider stripe, let your imagination run wild! :)

Next I'm hoping to start working on the playroom, and I'll go through my ideas for that soon. I'm hoping to get working on the utility room and our ensuite bathroom too so there'll be lots going on! I was also thinking of doing a few more posts on general family life and/or possibly what I've learned so far about blogging, what do you think? Tell me what you'd be interested in reading about cos I'd love to know!