Sully's Terrazzo Wall with a FREE Printable

Leigh Ann
Jun 30, 2021
4 min read

We've been in our house well over a year now, and slowly but surely, it's all starting to feel like home. A throw pillow here and an artwork there, and our open space is getting cozier. Out of the rooms in our house, the two that I feel most "done" with are our playroom and Sully's room. Kid rooms don't scare me because I can take risk and have a little extra leeway for color, so I dove into those first.

I have loved terrazzo forever and eyed wallpaper and flooring in different colors for ages, so I jumped at the chance to use it in Sully's room. The pattern is a throwback to the 1970s and even more so to the 1920s when the style first became a popular flooring option. I love the textured look and the opportunity to showcase so many colors in one. When we measured and estimated wallpaper cost, though, my little dreams were crushed. You want me to pay how much for one wall?? *Cue wall stencils.* Being the stubborn, tunnel visioned person I am, I hopped on Google which led me to Cutting Edge Wall Stencils. There I easily found a stencil large enough to make my project doable. What I love about a stencil opposed to a wallpaper is that I get full color control as well as the opportunity to easily cover it up or touch up mistakes. The stencil came with instructions as well as a link to a series of YouTube videos to really make sure you are getting the most out of their products; I also purchased the level which ensured my design was straight.

As suggested, I used flat paint which dries quickly, allowing me to do multiple coats if needed within one square without re-taping it up. A few other helpful tools were sponge round stippling brushes, plastic cups to pour paint into when I was on top of the ladder, a paper towel or two, and plenty of painter’s tape to make sure my stencil was set exactly where I wanted. In my terrazzo, I used 5 colors: orange, grey, navy, yellow, and a darker teal. Before painting the first rectangle, I took a Sharpie and labeled each individual “fleck” to mark which color would go where, making sure there was a semi-equal number of both. After the first painting, it went by quickly, as the colors were marked around the edges. The key to stenciling is making sure you don’t have very much paint on your brush. Dip into the paint, blot it on a paper towel, and quickly and gently stipple the paint onto each open space. Every time that I tried to cut a corner and use more paint, my design bled out past the stencil; totally my fault!

After spending a little (much) longer than I had planned thanks to a certain little boy learning to crawl and walk in the middle of my project, I finally finished the entire wall. I was instantly in love, and it is forever written in stone that no one in the house is allowed to ever paint over it (just kidding but not really). I picked the colors based on what I thought could be used for the future when he gets to decide his big boy bedding: construction, dinos, football, space, really whatever.

My goal is for every room in the house to look like it could belong to any of us, but just with fun additions and personalized touches. This wall let me make something that I would honestly put in any room (assuming Cody would tolerate a 10 foot wall of brightly colored specks on just any wall. Bless him-he joyfully goes along with whatever idea I have and helps me execute it.) but take a few more risks with colors because it belongs to a kid who loves colors and doesn't know any differently.

Paint and yarn aside, I want our home to be filled with as much truth as I can fit, almost to the point where's it's impossible to outrun the message of "I am loved." In the middle of the project, Cody was out of town for a few nights, so Sully and I settled in like any other night. We did bath and bed, and he went perfectly to sleep as he always does. In the middle of the night, he woke up crying (which he literally NEVER does), so I ran in there. He looked at me like it was totally normal to be awake that time of night, so I scooped him up and rocked him in his chair in the dark. After a long while, it was apparent that he wasn't going back to sleep anytime soon, so I pulled up the music video of this song and just rocked and sang and cried. My mom used to sing the first part of it to me when I was little, and it was a full circle moment to rock my own baby. The second part of the song are words that I want my sweet boy to always know, no matter what the world may tell him. These are words that I both believe for him now and pray for him in the future, and I love that they are in simple statements that he can easily repeat back to me.

Like with all of my printables, I saved to a flash drive and had Office Depot print them for me for a little over $1. The paper quality is always great and the color is vibrant. You can also print at home! If you'd like to download this file for free, click the link below. You will also find a pink and navy version, as well.