DIY Nursery Accent Wall Ideas

If you’ve come looking for nursery accent wall ideas, you’re in the right place! This DIY was such a fun and easy weekend project! When picking out nursery décor, I knew I was going to create an accent wall. I looked at wall decals, wallpaper, a wall mural – really any wall art you can think of! Ultimately, I knew I wanted this baby nursery to be able to transition easily into a kids room. I opted for a painted accent wall as it’s an extremely budget friendly option! This accent wall creates a great focal point in a nursery room. Like I’ve shared before; you can make such an impact with just a little bit of paint.

Step 1: Measure Your Nursery accent Wall & Determine Sections

For this project I started by measuring the width of the wall and then used my notebook to lay out the different sections that I would create with the vertical lines. I knew I did not want a vertical line in the center of the wall, so after working with the measurements I settled on creating 5 total sections.

Step 2: Pencil & Tape your Vertical Lines

To tape the vertical lines, I grabbed my measuring tape, level, pencil, and Frog Tape. I measured from the corner to the outside edge of the 2” section (see graphic). Next, I used my level and pencil to mark a straight line from the ceiling to the floor. The three center sections are 18” wide and the two outer edge sections are 14 ¾” wide. Once each line was marked, I then used my 2” width Frog Tape and taped from ceiling to floor, to keep the tape straight I only unrolled about 6”-8” of tape at a time.

Step 3: Determine angle & Create guide

For the chevron-like section, there is the way I did it and then there is the way I should have done it! I will share how I went about this but recommend taking the easier route!

How I did it:

I started in the left-hand section with the lines angling down. To choose my angle I just placed the first, top piece of tape at an angle I liked and stuck to it. This is where it got tricky for me. I liked the angle but I wasn’t sure how I was going to mirror that angle all the way across the wall.

This is where my husband stepped in with some creativity! We grabbed a piece of paper, laid it over the tape on the wall and traced the lines of the angle on to it. Then we cut out the paper angle and then transferred that to a piece of cardboard from a box cut off! This cutout became the guide for the whole wall. We would just flip the guide over for the angled-up lines.

How I Should Have Done it:

BUY THIS! It’s an angle finder, any local hardware shop should carry this tool, if my need for immediate satisfaction could have waited just about 20 minutes I could have been out and back home with this tool and what would have saved some time not only in making our own guide but as we laid out all the different lines.

That said – there are no walls in DIYs, just obstacles, if you can’t get over them you can probably get around them!

I had not plan for how the angled lines were going to be laid out, I just took it one section at a time and choose different varieties and combos of the number of lines and the widths of the tape used.

Step 4: Mark all angled lines and tape off these lines

We marked all these lines again with a straight edge and pencil and then went back and taped them off. For these lines we used a mixture of 1” Frog Tape and ½” frog tape. We did not use any 2” tape throughout the angled lines, I wanted to make sure the vertical lines stood apart from the angled lines. Once all the lines were marked and taped off then it was time to paint!

Step 5: Determine the appropriate paint color for your nursery accent wall!

How to pick the perfect contrast color for your accent wall

The other three walls of this room were painted in SW Light French Gray, I wanted the accent wall just slightly darker to keep the neutral nursery design. I tried to search through paint chips and even googled for a coordinating color, but I was just having such a hard time.

That’s when I went to my local Sherwin Williams shop and talked to the sales associate there. This man was incredible and so helpful! When we explained what we were trying to do, he simplified it! He was able to just adjust the formula slightly to add less white to keep it a darker color. He mixed up the paint and it was a perfect fit!

So, when you are unsure of the color ask the sales associate! Their advice is free and their knowledge on paint colors is unmatched!

Step 6: Paint & Peel

We use an angled paint brush and hand painted the edges at the ceiling, floor and corners. We then used a roller to roll the rest of the wall.

Last step was to peel off the tape. Like in our How to Paint a Pegboard post, we pulled the tape off slow and at an angle. We did have a few very minor touchups because we waited too long to pull the tape off and the paint had dried too much. These were easy and we were so happy with how it turned out!