How to Make Gingham Covered Walls at Home

This check effect has a fresh, contemporary feel in bright, light colors – though it can change dramatically with a different palette. In traditional dark greens, blues and reds, it will produce a dramatic tartan effect, and in pale off-white tones, a neutral minimalist look. The obvious way to find inspiration is to pick three colors from the fabric used in the room and use the dominant color for the background glaze. You have to make the blue background echoes the bright blue stripe in the flowery chintz, and the stripes pick up accent colors in sharp green and yellow. Instead of conventional wooden moldings, you could use a fabric braid to edge the effect.

The first stage of this technique is produced without masking tape, and if you prefer an easy sort effect, you can leave it like this. Adding the other color is a labor of love, but you could cut the workload by drawing much larger checks or confining the effect to below or above a dado.

If you size the checks to the width of a plank of wood with a handle attached, the initial drawing is much quicker. The walls should first be painted in white vinyl silk emulsion. If they are already painted in ordinary emulsion, apply a coat of clear acrylic varnish to provide a suitable surface.

Oil Painting Workspace (Photo credit: nimbu)

Working on one wall at a time, find the middle of the wall and with a plumb line, wooden molding and pencil, draw a vertical line from top to bottom. Place the wide plank flat on the wall against this line and rule a second vertical line along the opposite edge from top to bottom. Place the narrow molding against this line and rule a third line. Continue the vertical lines until you have covered the wall, alternating with wide and narrow widths of timber. Draw the horizontal lines in the same way, starting from the top of the wall and using the narrow molding first.

Working in one small area at a time, say a group of nine checks, apply the background blue glaze all over with an ordinary paintbrush, working in vertical strokes. Drag the glaze to create a fine striped texture. Wrap a piece of mutton cloth around the paint pad and secure it with tape or an elastic band to keep it clear of your work. While the glaze is still wet, draw the pad along the narrow stripes. This will lift some of the glaze, producing a lighter blue woven imprint. Don’t worry if the lines look slightly wobbly as this will help imitate the weaver of real fabric. You will need to rewrap the mutton cloth over the pad as it becomes saturated in the glaze. Cover the horizontals as well as the verticals. Continue this process in sections until the whole wall is covered in squares.

When the wall is completely dry, you can choose to mask a one inch wide vertical stripe next to the pale blue stripe or to work freehand. Either way, load a stencil brush with lime green glaze and draw a second parallel line to one side of each pale blue line. Reload the brush frequently to create a smoothly dragged line. While the glaze is still wet, go over it as before with mutton cloth wrapped around the paint pad. Wobble the lines to make them slightly irregular like a real weave. Repeat the process until all the vertical stripes are completed, then paint the horizontal stripes.

Using pale yellow-green, paint the stripes on the opposite side of the initial pale blue stripes. When all the vertical stripes are painted, paint the horizontal stripes in the same way. In areas likely to get knocked about, such as passages and halls, you should protect the finished effect with a coat of varnish. Use matt for linen effect, or satin for a glazed chintz look.