Painting With Two Different Finishes of the Same Color
There has been a great deal of interest on my article on how to paint stripes with the same color, different sheen, so I like to follow up with some related ideas.
A while back, I used the same concept of painting with contrasting sheens in another room. This time, instead of painting stripes I painted diamonds.
- I chose an olive color- Tweed Jacket by Behr (Code: PIC-35), and used a flat enamel and a semi-gloss finish
- I painted the walls and ceiling in the flat enamel finish [side note: Normally, you want to use a flat finish on a ceiling. However, this is a powder room and I wanted a little extra moisture protection]
- Next, I installed a simple one-piece crown molding
- Then, I pre-measured the height of the wall between the bottom of the crown molding and the top of the base molding to determine the size of the diamonds
- I wanted an odd number of diamonds on the vertical row and went with three
- Then I measured with a tape measure and level, marking the four corners of each diamond with a pencil
- The diamonds are squares (90 degree angles, equal length sides) rotated 45 degrees
- If you have a set of colored pencils, you can choose a pencil with a similar color to the wall paint and the markings will be less noticeable
- I taped the outline of each diamond- this took time and patience
- When you are finished taping the diamonds, all tape should reside completely in the diamonds that are keeping the flatter finish (as you looked at the taped wall, the flat finish diamonds should appear smaller because of the way the wall is taped
- I continued the pattern around corners- so some diamonds were split across two adjacent walls
- Tape the edge of the base molding and crown/ceiling
- I also put a small piece of tape right in the middle of each diamond that was maintaining the flatter finish- that way I wouldn't accidentally paint it with the semi-gloss (I'm sure I would have messed up if I had skipped this step)
- Then I rolled one coat of semi-gloss and immediately removed the tape
Here is how it turned out
A couple of notes:
- The look is very subtle, but that is a good thing. If I wanted more contrast, I could have had the semi-gloss tinted slightly lighter or darker than the flatter finish
- Instead of contrasting sheens, you could use a subtle faux finish inside the diamonds- the taping process would remain the same
- Instead of diamonds, you you try something different- like circles. For curved shapes, make a stencil instead of taping
Jon
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[...] I wrote a follow-up post on sheen contrasting here. [...]