DIY
Here's a close-up of the top after things were secured. I was happy to use up a lot of old art pieces that I've had laying around, although I didn't have quite enough wood ready to go. So I got to pull out my paint and block-printing supplies during construction. The Suffolk Sheep sign came from an auction, and the Celo piece came from an old soda crate. The rest of the wood pieces in this view are my own creations.
When I came up with the idea to make this bench, I couldn't resist the urge to rummage through all the wood I have been collecting over the past few years. Everything from vintage signs and soda crates to personal art pieces that didn't make the cut soon formed a towering stack of multicolored wood on my living room floor.
First, decide how big you want your diamonds to be. Frieling used a mirror as a stencil, but you can choose a size that works best for your wall. After choosing a size of diamond, set out part of your pattern on your wall with masking or painter's tape. This is a great way to get a visual of how this pattern is going to look and how many columns/pieces of wood you'll need.
Measure your wall's height and width and write it down. Find a piece of graph paper to plot out your pattern. This technique is a lot like what Shoshana used in her Pizza Box Stencil Wall DIY. To determine how many columns you need, take the length of your wall and divide it by the size of the diamond. For example, Frieling's wall was 160 inches wide, and her diamond measured 20 inches from point to point. Since 160/20 = 8, she needed 8 columns to fill up her wall. Play around on your wall with painter's tape or with a new sheet of graph paper to figure out how many diamonds you want in each column. Frieling decided to do 2 diamonds in the first column, 3 in the second column, and repeat on through. Once you've decided, draw the completed pattern, measured to scale, onto your graph paper.
Now it's time to transfer your grid to the wall. Instead of trying to deal with masking tape again, Frieling and her husband used fishing line (you can also use string) and thumbtacks to create a plumb line, which marks the center of each column. The fishing line was marked with sharpie where the top and the bottom points of each diamond should be. Since Frieling only used single piece of fishing line, she marked the marks for even columns with a red sharpie and odd columns with a black sharpie. Moving the fishing line across the wall at the correct intervals, she marked out the correct dots for each column onto the wall. (For more clarification on this process, check out Frieling's post here). After you've marked your wall, it's time to make your diamonds.
Cut the correct number of pieces for your diamonds using a miter saw. Put four of the pieces together and attach each corner with finishing nails. Fill in the nail holes and corners with dap wood filler. After each piece is dry, rub everything down with sandpaper to get rid of extra wood filler and create a good surface for painting.
The designer made a conscious effort to not have everything in the room match. "The word I had in mind to describe how I wanted the place to feel was 'soft.' A soft home is where someone can exhale. It's a home, not just a house, where you can recline on the couch or sit on the floor comfortably," says Pla.
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