Painted Plank Wall Decor DIY

I consider this project only partially DIY. The cool thing these days is to find pallets, take them apart, and make amazing and cute things from the boards. Well, that intimidates me. So when I found this unpainted plank thing, I totally got it because I knew it would be lovely in my home. And it would be easy to paint and make awesome.

I went out to the garage and found all the paint sample jars I had purchased over the past year or two. I crossed my fingers and hoped they were still paint and not blobs of gross. After some vigorous shaking, I had four different paint colors.

I started by doing every other plank, let those dry, then did the other planks. I did tape off the planks I wasn't painting just because I didn't want the hassle of other colors showing through. This was the easy part. I thought it would be difficult because I had to do some paint color mixing to get the shades light enough to match what I wanted.

I'll have you know that, no, I did not mean to have that streak of lighter color on that second plank down. But if you saw this in person, you'd see that a couple other planks are kind of streaky because of the mixing of colors. I didn't mix well, and I didn't wash my brush between a few colors because I was hoping it would become a teensy bit streaky. In my experience, I like things best when I just go with the flow instead of trying to plan out every tiny detail. Plus, that turns out to be a lot more work.

The next part was the difficult part. I wanted a word on this, something different than "home" or "love." I enjoy things that say that, but I have other objects like that in my home already. Plus, if I'm making this myself, I might as well make it personalized to us. After making a list of nearly 20 words/phrases, I decided to go with something a little bit silly. But it's still something I love.

As you can see, I went with "be amazing." I was having a real dilemma choosing between "be happy", "be brave", or "be amazing." And then I was having a dilemma about whether this would sound like it was an order instead of something inspirational. I'm hoping people see it as uplifting. I guess I'm in my house most of the time, and I get to decide. I mean, I live here, right?

The writing is not even close to being beautiful and perfect, and I don't care much. As it hangs there, I might do some touch ups if something keeps bugging me over and over. But sometimes the most imperfect things in my home are my favorite.

I love how it's pretty understated. My walls are a light gray color, and the colors in the living room are shades of gray and blue and brown. I already have other things that are extra colorful that stand out. So I just wanted this to fill that spot by my stairs with something sweet. I think it turned out perfect!

Hooray for nesting! Am I right? If it hadn't been for my sudden urge to want to craft something while Steve was out with the scouts, I don't think this project would've been finished for many moons. Let's be honest, I originally bought that plank thing last summer. He he.

Did I mention that baby's room is getting the last coat of paint this weekend? Then I get to share our progress and ideas for the fun stuff with you!


I linked up this project over at DIY Show Off. This is the link to That DIY Party. I'm still never sure I did the link correctly. Hopefully it all works for you! But please check out the other cool things people made over there.