Painting A Wall To Look Like Concrete

I have had so many requests for a blog post on how I painted my concrete wall. If you watched my Instagram stories during the process, I know I made a lot of you nervous as to what the results were going to be, especially when I started with the coat of black. When painting a concrete wall (as someone politely told me, “it’s called concrete, NOT cement), it will look really bad at first but the more blending and paint laying that is completed, it only gets better, ending with an amazing result. My wall started out as beige but that has no significance to the end color because I covered all of it. Needless to say, it doesn’t matter what color your walls are to start off with because it will all be covered up. I used various colors and I was lucky enough to have them all on hand in my closet from past painting projects or from samples that I had on hand. My wall space that I completed is approximately 12’x9′ tall so I didn’t need a lot of paint.

 

Click here to see my YouTube video of the whole process. And I hope that you will subscribe to my YouTube channel while you are there for more future video tutorials. ❤️ Since I hadn’t really planned on blogging about it, I didn’t take many actual pictures during the process. So, I just put my IG story videos together for you so that you could see the whole process. I will give the written out process here too, but I know, videos are always more fun to watch.  I just used a regular Paint Roller with 1/2″ nap.

1.  I painted the first coat on the wall using the color Tabby Cat Grey by Valspar and didn’t cover the entire area, I wanted less paint so that the underneath showed. Don’t worry, as you layer, the initial wall color will disappear.

2. After the first coat was almost dry, I Rolled on my second color. The second color I used was Tomcat also in Valspar paint. I layered it on with my roller and they painted another coat of grey. I blotched on more black after the next coat of grey in places where I wanted it darker. If you are wondering, I used the same roller for all of the colors and didn’t wash it out as I went. I just got as much paint off of my roller on the wall as I could and then continued on with the next color.

3.The last color I used was Benjamin Moore White Heron. I Rolled the white sparingly all over the wall and thicker in some places that others. To keep from roller marks, I used my rollers as a paint brush sometimes and swiped it from side to side. I then took a wet rag and blended the white in with the other colors underneath. I had the ceiling taped off with frog tape and used a brush with the same laying process to get close to the ceiling so that I didn’t have a “line” of no paint remaining up there when I was finished. I completed lots of blending with the different colors and my wet rag at the end to get each section looking as I wanted and so that it wasn’t too dark in certain areas. It would just dab my wet rag into the white paint and blotch it on in various places and then blend.

4. When I was finished with the way I wanted the wall to look, I dipped my soaking wet rag into a paint color and squeezed it on the wall to allow for drips to come down for more of an artist piece. Then once the drips were almost dry I blended them with a damp rag. To make this process a little less sloppy, you could use a Spray Bottle with your paint color and water mixture.
Blending is key to making the wall look more like concrete than just layered streaks. The fun part about it is that every wall will look different and unique. If you like art and creating things, you would love to try this out. Just remember, a wall can always be repainted or fixed if you don’t like the end result.

 

I hope that you enjoyed this little tutorial and that you are inspired to start you own painting project. Have a great day my friends!

Source List: 

Desk: Thrifted and Painted

Desk Chair: Thrifted

Sofa: Secondhand but from Ikea

Pillow: Ikea

Frames: Thrifted and Painted

Horse Photo: @shuttertreephotos

Large Sign: @hoekstradecor

Mistletoe Print: Printed at Office Max from word document to poster size

Chippy Open Back Frame: Antique Fair

Shelf: Weathered Board Propped up on Concrete Planters

Books: Thrifted

Candle Holders: Thrifted and Painted with White Chalk Paint from my Recipe here, added vintage jewels

Rug: @boutiquerugs

Trunk: Craigslist