DIY Sharpie Herringbone Stencil on the Wall!

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Remember when I added the green shiplap in my office? I did a lot of thinking (and looking!) about what to do for the top part of the wall. I wanted to do some kind of pattern, but I didn’t want it to overwhelm the room or take away from the shiplap. I am also not a very “daring” decorator, and I didn’t want anything that would stick out like a sore thumb in my house.

I finally found an idea that I thought would: a) add a little something without being too much b) be fun and more daring without being too wild and c) would be pretty easy and cheap to do… a herringbone pattern done with a stencil and sharpies!

I first ordered a herringbone stencil from Amazon. They have these on Etsy, too, but I found the best deal on Amazon. You can also print some at home for free, but they would have a paper backing, and I’m glad I went with the plastic stencil. Just an FYI for you, though, if you’re interested!

I also got some water-based sharpies from Amazon. I read that the water-based part was important because that helps the sharpie go over paint easily. This was a 2-pack and I ended up needing 3 (they each got worn down after about 1/3 of the wall). I ordered two of these packs in total.

Then, I got started! I used some tape to keep the stencil at the very top of the wall by the trim. I colored in each section with the marker, and then used the guidelines at the top of the stencil to line up the stencil each time. It was really easy, just took some time! (I spent about 3 days, maybe an hour each day, to finish this up)

A few times, I would smear the line I just did with the stencil. You can see one in the above picture, on the left side, 4 down. At the end, I pulled out our wall paint color and touched these spots up!

I kept chugging along, until I finally finished! I will say that this pattern can mess with your eyes… it almost looks 3D or like the wall is distorted. I thought it was just me, but my husband agreed. I added this sign to break up the wall, and it thankfully doesn’t bother me anymore!

This was an easy, just time consuming, update! It cost me about $11 for the stencil and $18 for the 4 sharpie markers… so about a $30 update. The plus about this is that it’ll be easy to cover over this if I decide I don’t like it anymore! (versus something like wallpaper or a wood pattern). Now that my office update is done, I guess it’s time to go organize my desk…