I was so excited when Dunn-Edwards contacted me with a project idea that I jumped up from the couch and walked into every room in the house trying to find a wall I could paint! We are moving in just 2 months so I figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to go crazy in a house we are renting so I texted one of my best friends Susi and asked her if she could use a wall painted in her home. We ended up deciding to paint her six year old daughter room and give it a little happy mood inspiring makeover!

We couldn’t keep it a huge surprise because we wanted it to be perfect for her. So after telling her we were going to paint a room in her wall, she anxiously headed to pick out a paint color and ended up choosing Port Hope. I was ecstatic she picked a bright color because I wanted to create her a fun bright gallery wall. Her other request was pink hearts all over, so of course- we delivered!

I headed to Dunn-Edwards to meet with a Professional Color Advisor (this service is free – find out more HERE) who helped us pick out the sheen, amount we needed and helped me get the perfect brushes, tape and drop cloths for the project. We showed her pictures of the project and she she educated me on the amazing line of paint we would be using. We chose to go with Port Hope in the Everest (interior) paint line. It is Ultra-Premium, Zero VOC, 100% acrylic paint. It primes itself, has a uniform shine and has virtually NO ODOR – how amazing is this for families with smell sensitive children?


I thought I would go through our process for painting the room first, and then how I set up a gallery wall incorporating some of Ashley’s favorite colors. After you meet with your PCA and pick up your supplies you will want to make sure you have approximately an hour or two for each wall in your home you plan to paint.
Your first steps usually take the longest and are the hardest but SO WORTH going slow and steady and being picky. Lay down your drop cloth to protect your floor because no matter how careful you are, there will always be little paint splatters or accidents and you don’t want bright blue paint on anything!
*I love using packing tape to secure the drop cloth on the bottom portion of the baseboard so that it doesn’t leave the wall.
Next, tape. This is the part of painting that I absolutely LOATHE but have learned the importance of. Have you ever walked into a room and seen crazy paint lines on the ceiling, or the wall? Just taking a few extra minutes NOW can ensure that you have a perfectly straight paint line for the rest of that walls time with that color (because who keeps walls the same color that long anyway?) Chad taught me this amazing trick that he picked up working construction years ago. After you have your tape placed, you paint over the tape with the adjacent walls color – that way, IF the paint decides to bleed; it bleeds the color of the wall next to it, instead of the blue! Genius right? Try it next time you paint!
*I personally never paint with painted nails because it is horrible to get off. Random, I know.
*I paint that adjacent wall color before removing face plates from the wall to give the paint time to dry before painting the actual color. This helps me be efficient and quick.
Then, you are ready to go! I thought it would be fun to let the leading lady Ashley came paint the first blue on her wall before I took over to get the job done. She was blown away by how bright the color was going on!  To work quickly, I used a roller brush on the entire wall as close to the tape as I could get, then went in by hand and a smaller hand brush to do the taped lines & then brushed the color up just a little to break up any hard line because of the difference in brush styles.

I only needed to do one coat of paint for perfect even coverage. I touched up a few parts with the small brush that I noticed were a little lighter – but thats it! Let it dry for 30 minutes and then pull off your painters tape and look at that perfect line! Woo – isn’t it pretty?
So, we let Ashley soak in her gorgeous new room for a few days while I headed home to work on her gallery wall. Gallery walls are my absolute favorite, I love putting them together and think they can compliment any room! I also love adding fun accents to them to spruce them up instead of just using plain pictures….

The first step of a gallery wall is to determine the size of your space and your color scheme. Pinterest is a great place to search for ideas while also saving photos to keep you in line with your idea. I personally love to paint frames that I find at Goodwill, or that are plain. That is what we did for Ashley’s room. I had a general idea of how big her wall was, so I laid down a drop cloth and started laying out frames and switching things up until I visually liked the aesthetic of the frames together.
*Always plan your layout before attaching anything to the wall, patching nail holes is a pain!
*Add hardware before you paint
*Don’t do everything the same color, but keep things in the same hue.
Paint, let dry, seal and then add artwork.
As a general rule of Interior Design thumb, you want either the top, middle, or bottom of your Gallery wall to be horizontally straight – I usually go for the bottom just because thats easiest to start from the bottom and build your way up.
Snap a few pictures so when you go to put up your frames on the wall, you know the layout as you planned it on the ground! Here is a super quick video on how we put up the gallery wall in Ashleys’ room.

And of course, because everyone loves a good before/after here we are:
Learn about Dunn-Edwards FREE color consultation service and download a FREE sample coupon valid for one 8 oz. Perfect Palette® Sampler™ at any Dunn-Edwards store.
*Coupon is valid until August, 31 2017.

Don’t forget to live life colorfully.