With all the fabulous art and wall hangings in our guest bedroom, one wall remained bare and unadorned. It’s the wall next to my dad’s chair. As a reminder, the guest bedroom is primarily my dad’s room. He needs an accessible space with nothing too fragile in his usual pathways. His chair sits next to this wall, so I definitely did not want to add a glass frame or precious artwork for him to accidentally knock over and/or hurt himself with.
“How can I add interest to this wall in a safe way?”
Thus, I began to ponder, “How can I add interest to this wall in a safe way?” Eventually, I landed on a big, happy circle! Why a circle exactly? Well…I don’t really know. I knew I wanted the yellow detail in the art on the other side of the room to be repeated. Also, I loved the idea of repeating the circle of the new mirror (OOOPS…did say that? I guess I’ll show you that in the future!). Mostly, I knew Daddy couldn’t break or knock over something painted on the wall!
All it took was a spontaneous trip to the hardware store to pick up a sample size of eggshell paint. I tried not to overthink my decision and just go with the flow!
Tools needed
Before we get started, we’ve got assemble all of our tools. I’m sure you have most of this stuff on hand already!
- Paint (I quickly settled on “Bling Bling” by Behr)
- A small paintbrush, preferably angled
- A small roller
- Yarn or string
- A pencil
- A thumbtack
- Measuring tape
Steps to painting a happy circle
Firstly, decide on your desired size and make a mark for the top, bottom, and side points of your circle. I knew I wanted my circle to be substantial but also sensible next to Daddy’s chair. Therefore, my circle is 36 inches in diameter.
Next, divide the diameter in half to find your radius. Mark your radius in pencil and stick your thumbtack in place. Again, let’s use my circle for example. I divided the diameter of my circle, 36 inches, in half, resulting in the radius of 18 inches. I measured 18 inches down from my top and side marks to mark the middle of my circle. Then went my thumbtack!
(Hey — I warned you before that your math teacher was right! You use math all the time. Shout out to Ms. Bradshaw, my high school Algebra teacher!)
After that, measure the length of your radius with yarn. Make sure to add a couple of inches to that length. My radius was 18 inches, so I measured and cut a little more than 23 inches so I had enough to wrap around the pencil and thumbtack.
Next, tie the yarn onto the thumbtack and the pencil onto the string.
Perfectionists: this is the part that will make you nervous!
You’ll then begin to draw your circle using the string. I personally struggled with this step because I was holding the string too taut and the pencil too angled. Take your time on this part to get it right! Take out the thumbtack thereafter.
Now to the fun part: PAINT!
Paint around the circumference of the circle. I used a one inch angled brush, painting in short strokes with very little paint on the bristles.
After that, use the roller to paint the area inside the circle and watch your design come alive! You’ll need to repeat these steps at least one more time to cover all the pencil marks.
Finally, clean up the additional pencil marks with soap and water or a wall eraser.
And you’re done! Enjoy your new circle of sunshine!
Sincerely,
Felicia.
P.S.: Check out the ORC blog for more great ideas!
Love the color selection! And thinking of it as a giant wheel of cheese just makes it that much happier in my book! I definitely needed the reminder to not overthink things too much ❤
Thanks for reading! I am glad you took something away from the post! I had to remind myself that the circle is easy to paint over.