Entryways are often my favorite place in a home. It allows you the chance to do something a little more fun and crazy than you would normally be allowed in a whole room. When I was house searching, any house that had a proper entryway got a few extra points in my mind. I was so excited to do something KRAZY with a capital K when the house we bought had a proper entryway.

The entryway was pretty blah when we bought the house. Blah brown tile, blah brown walls and super blah cowboy lamp.

My dream was of course was to use some gorgeous wallpaper, but my walls were pretty heavily textured and I ain’t got time or money to get that sanded down. I had to consider other non-wallpaper, but still WOW options.  I considered everything from ship lap to chalkboard but nothing was really popping to me. 

I remembered this room I had pinned way back when. Looks like wallpaper, but it’s actually a stencil! I was sold.  It is a lot of WOW but still pretty neutral.

It also helped that my entryway was pretty much exactly that same size and layout.  The stencil is from Royal Design Studio and can be found here. They have so many awesome stencils I am thinking about buying a few more for some other areas in my house. Here are a few of my favorite:

Full disclosure: while this project is pretty easy, it is not a fast project. It took me a lot of time to complete. You can’t just paint, take the stencil down and then put right back up to start again. You will get some paint splatters doing that. I did a few hours every day over the course of a week. I think the end result is worth the time though.

I decided to do light grey spots instead of the black and white. I wanted it to be slightly less IN YO FACE. You really only need a few things to complete the whole project: stencil, stencil brush or sponge, paint for the spots, and painter’s tape.

I painted the base of my wall ultra white. I taped the stencil using blue painters tape, which worked pretty well, but I had to use a lot of tape to make it stay on the wall.

I used a small sponge to paint the spots, and looking back I wish I had bought a stencil brush. I think my spots would have come out cleaner with the brush. Since my walls are textured, the spots don’t have perfectly clean lines, so if you have heavily textured walls as well, don’t expect perfect lines.

I ended up cutting the stencil into smaller pieces to make it a little easier to manage and get around weird corners.

I LOVE the end result. Its a fun entryway, but since it’s grey and white, still neutral. It adds such a pop of fun to my house, which is turning out to be a lot more pulled back and reserved than I normally go for. It’s just a super fun room and makes opening the door an exciting adventure!

Things still on my to do list for the entryway: Find a vintage rug, fix the terrible blind situation happening, paint molding, and decide on a door color.