These master bathroom Venetian plaster walls have been such a pain, and at one point this weekend, I was almost in tears and ready to throw in the towel. But I kept at it, and after hours and hours and hours of work over the last five days, I finally have them finished.
The process itself is not hard at all. I shared that process in Friday’s post. (See: DIY Teal Venetian Plaster Wall Finish Using Modern Masters.) The problem was getting the color just right. I won’t even tell you how many more coats of the Venetian plaster finish these walls have on them just since Friday, but that’s mainly because I’ve lost count. I just couldn’t get it right. First, it was still too dark. Then it was too light. Then it was too blue. Then it was too washed out.
So after several attempts, I think I finally landed on the right color that still had enough depth of color while still being light and not washed out.
But first, a quick recap. I started out with the walls pretty dark. They were gorgeous, but most of you agreed that they took focus away from the mural.
So a couple more coats later, I had lightened the color considerably.
It was a pretty color, but when I looked back at my inspiration wall color, I knew I wasn’t quite finished. That inspiration wall color was still quite a bit lighter than the color I had ended up with last Friday.
So over the last few days, I was determined to get closer to that inspiration picture no matter how long it took, or how may coats of plaster I had to use on the walls.
Well, I think I finally got there. It’s not an exact match, but it’s pretty darn close.
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That’s a pretty good match, don’t you think? I’m so pleased with how it turned out. It took so much work and tweaking to get to a color that struck the right balance. I wanted it to have a depth of color to it while not being too dark. And it needed to be light and airy while not being too washed out. That was quite a challenge mixing and testing and mixing and testing until I found just the right color that struck that balance.
You can actually see the original color around the top of the wall next to the ceiling. It was so dark! I’m very glad I kept at it and stayed with the original plan.
This picture below is a tiny bit greener than the wall looks in person (the pictures above are much more accurate on my laptop computer screen), but I wanted to show y’all the gorgeous, subtle movement in the finish. It’s very soft and cloudlike now, which is much more what I had in mind
I was so determined to have that subtle finish rather than the finish with harsher variations in color that you see in so many Venetian plaster wall finishes. In fact, the “how to” video from Modern Masters has that much harsher result. Here’s a screen shot. You can find the video here.
I don’t know if that has so much color variation in it because she used a much darker color, or if it’s the burnishing step that brings out that color difference. I didn’t burnish my walls because I didn’t want to take a chance that that step would bring out those huge color variations. I was so pleased with the color of my walls without the burnishing step, and my walls are much smoother than her sample wall even without the burnishing step.
Anyway, all of that to say that it took a few extra days to get it just right, but in the end, I think those extra days paid off so that I could keep with my original vision for this bathroom.
I’m so glad this is done! Next step: shower and bathroom floor tile.
Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.
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