BOY ROOM IDEA | GEOMETRIC ACCENT WALL

By thetaylorstyle_ on March 10, 2022

Today on the blog, I’m sharing our boy room idea and geometric accent wall! We finally got through our first room in this house and it feels so good. We still have so much to do, but at least this one piece feels more like home. I decided to start with our son’s room because he’s the oldest, but also because I wanted him to feel at home in his new house.

When we moved, he was pretty sad about leaving his old bedroom and playroom + would ask often if he could go back. He would say he liked his new house too, but would never want to go into his room like he used to. We also started with his room because it was the easiest and no walls or doors were being added or changed.

First, we started out by skim coating the walls and ceiling because I am not all about that late 70’s texture! This was a loooooong process that was tedious & time consuming, but totally worth the end result. If you’ve never skim coated before, here are the steps I took. Sources and links are all listed at the end of this post!

How to Smooth Out Your Walls:

1.Vacuum + clean your walls with TSP or another all purpose cleaner prime the walls with an all purpose drywall primer, so you get the best adherence.

2. Prime the walls with an all purpose drywall primer, so you get the best adherence.

3. Then you are ready for the mud! If you buy pre mixed, make sure to also buy a drill mixer so you can get it to a smooth mayonnaise consistency, otherwise it will leave air bubbles in your mud on the walls.

4. After that, I used a 6 inch taping knife to slather it on the walls, moving up and down with the wall, think of painting a large canvas in rows and smoothed it out as I went across the wall with a 12 inch squeegee knife. If you wait too long to smooth the mud you put on the wall, it will dry too much and it will be hard to smooth, so do it in pieces as you go. Each coat should be light, if you do it too heavy, your compound will crack and turn yellow.

5. Then after I had 2 coats on, I sanded by hand first with 100 grit, and then followed that up with 120 grit. Depending on your wall, you will most likely need between 2 and 3 coats, but if your texture is subtle, it may only take 1 coat. You can also sand with a hand sander, pole sander, or a drywall sander if you will be doing a lot of retexturing.

6. Then, when you have your walls to the desired smoothness, you are ready to paint!

Once I had finally completed skim coating, I primed and painted my walls.

The colors I used were:

Swiss Coffee by Behr in eggshell for the walls
Aged Beige by Behr in eggshell for the baseboards and trim
Black by Behr in satin for the doors
Muted Sage by Behr for the accent wall

After I painted all the walls and ceiling, it was time for the accent wall! I really loved the geometric wall I did in our last house, so I decided to recreate it.

Geometric Accent Wall Tutorial:

I used all 1 in x 2 in x 8 ft mdf for it because its an engineered material that has no flaws like real wood.

Draw out your pattern first on a piece of paper or whatever works best for you.
Then measure how long each of your pieces needs to be. I started with my middle piece first and built off of that one for the rest of the wall.
Next, cut all the ends that will touch the edges of the walls at a 45° angle and then the ends that touched other pieces in the middle of the design, don’t cut an angle on, leave it straight.
Then I attached them to the wall with my brad nailer and used 2 inch 18 gauge nails. I made sure to set my nailer so my brad nails would countersink, meaning they would “sink” below the surface of the wood piece so I could fill the nail holes with wood filler.
Then I lightly sanded down all the spots I wood filled and caulked all my gaps and edges. This isn’t necessary, but does add that much more of a professional look to your finished product. Caulk usually takes at least a few hours to set, but it is recommended it dry for at least 24 hours before painting it.
Then I painted and touched up all the spots that were left.

After that, we ordered new carpet, new light fixture, a new door and closet doors, and then it was time to put on the trim and baseboards and then get to the fun part — decorating! I did try to use a lot of things from his old room, but we moved him into a big bed, so I did end up buying a bed frame and nightstand.

Overall, everyone loves this boy room idea! It smells good, feels good and looks good. We made it fun for him with the art and colors in the room, but really he just loves that he gets to call it his own. and I’m so happy we could do this for him.

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