DIY sponge wall design in hallway #spongewallmovement

I am still plugging away on the $100 room challenge on this boring hallway in our house…

This is what I started with:

Then I added board and batten trim and painted the walls –

The top half of the wall color is Statuesque by Behr Marquee and bottom white portion is just Ultra Pure White by Behr.  I did a full tuturial on how to install board and batten trim, what wood to use, how to space it in this post. 

So next I had been debating adding one more design element to the hallway which was basically a DIY wallpaper design using sponge painting!  Now this isn’t the same sponge painting of the 90’s where everyone was taking sea sponges and sponge painting this design on their wall – I did that one time in a half bath in our last house – never again!  Lol!  The now popular way to sponge paint is just using a regular old kitchen sponge and painting a geometric type design on your walls as an accent and it usually resembles a wallpaper design. 

Here’s a few examples of sponge painted walls that I love:

Here’s one by Pretty on Fridays is so pretty as an accent wall in a master bedroom:

This one in a nursery by Blooming Nest is so pretty!  She just cut a sponge to that shape – so many design options!

Here’s even a backsplash tile idea using a sponge – so pretty!!

And here’s another design in a closet – would be so pretty for a pantry too!

There are literally hundreds of designs possible and then of course colors of paint change the look too.  Search #spongewallmovement on Instagram or Pinterest for even more ideas.

So here’s how I did mine.  I picked a subtle color that was a just a shade or two darker than the wall color – I used Chic Gray by Behr and just bought a sample size for $3.98 – I had plenty of paint and even 1/4 of the jar left. And then just grabbed a paper plate and a regular kitchen sponge. 

I practiced a few times on a piece of paper and then just eye-balled a herringbone type pattern on the wall.  I wasn’t sure how I could mark off the wall to make it perfect without making pencil marks but you could use painter’s tape if you wanted to do measurements or a guide on the wall.

It did not take long at all – maybe 30 minutes to do this whole hallway and not even a full sample size of paint.  Such a cheap and easy design!

Some tips I would have would be to dab your sponge in the paint and then lightly dab it off on another portion of the plate or a different paper plate.  Also I would 3-4 sponge marks and then reload with paint.  Make sure to watch for drips and fix those while paint is still wet. 

It definitely got mixed reviews on Instagram  – 60% off people said not to do it and only about 40% said to do the sponge design which surprised me!   It definitely could tend to look a bit busy and I honestly did love the clean/crisp before of the trim and plain walls.

And the imperfection may drive some people crazy too – I thought it would bother me more too but it is sort of that perfectly imperfect look of like handdrawn wallpaper. 

Either way if I tire of it, it is an easy fix to just repaint the top half of the wall with a quick coat of paint. But I had been wanting to try this sponge wall design and this was the perfect spot to try it

So what do you think?  Yes to the sponge wall design or just clean, crisp walls?  If you were to do a sponge wall design where would you do it?

Make sure to check out all the other projects the other participants did in week 3 of the $100 room challenge – can’t wait to see the reveals coming soon!