DIY Cloud Ceiling | Little Girl’s Bedroom Makeover

When I asked R how she wanted her big girl room decorated, she insisted on a cloud ceiling. Since I wanted painted clouds on the ceiling in my room when I was a little girl, I agreed to try. After scouring the internet and Youtube for tutorials, I felt confident enough to try a DIY cloud ceiling.

 

(Also, we needed to repair some damage in her ceiling after a roof leak, so it needed repainting anyway.)

And here’s the finished product!

I have to say that when I decided to do a DIY painted cloud ceiling, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. It took several days longer than I planned. Painting overhead was uncomfortable and I needed more layers than I anticipated. So here are the steps to how to make a painted cloud ceiling.

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DIY Cloud Ceiling step one

Preparation

If your ceiling is currently popcorn or other texture, you’re going to want to remove it. I had done that when we first moved in and there are plenty of tutorials and videos out there to follow. I’ll link one of my favorites.

Once your ceiling is smooth, paint it with a white primer. I used KILLZ brand to protect against any mold or mildew if the roof ever leaked again. (Seeing as we just replaced the roof, it better not!)

DIY cloud ceiling step two

Choose and paint a sky color

I went with a blue from Valspar called Ice Sculpture *not sponsored* as my sky color. It only took one coat to cover my ceiling, but I also wasn’t trying for perfect coverage since I was going to be covering more than 80% of it with painted clouds.

DIY Cloud Ceiling step three

Shape clouds with first layer

Now to shape the clouds. R and I wanted the painted cloud ceiling would have realistic clouds. That meant keeping them un-uniformed, and shading them with several colors. So I made the original shape of the clouds with my base color. I mixed a little of the same blue on the ceiling with white.

 

Let’s talk a minute about paint brushes.

 

You can see in the video that I used several different types of brushes. By the end of it, I preferred a brush I found similar to these. I wish I had started with these.

Like I said, I was not keeping the clouds very uniform. I used some imperfections in the ceiling texture as a guide as well as just filling empty space.

 

DIY Cloud Ceiling step four

Layering the clouds

Now if you wanted to, you could stop here. But like I said, we wanted a realistic painted cloud ceiling. So the next layer I added was the same pink I painted the trim in R’s big girl room.

 

Wait. Pink? On realistic clouds?

 

Yep.

 

If you look at clouds, especially close to sunset or sunrise, they have many colors in them, not just white and gray. Plus I really wanted to pull that pink in. So I dabbed the pink around where I imagined the light source to be. (I was using the actual light source, the ceiling fan in the center of the room.)

 

Next I went in with the same grey on her walls.

Actually, that’s a lie. I went in with the grey from the Master Bedroom which was a shade or two darker. But it was too dark and I later went in and fixed it.

 

Anyway, the grey is for the bottom of the clouds. Dab this on the bottom of the clouds and focus the shape in a more linear pattern.

 

Now use pure white for the highlights. I used this near the tops but also to create a cloud on top of cloud effect.

 

Final layer, remember when I said I used too dark of a grey? Yeah, I went in with a final layer of grey. I’m glad I did. I used a very light amount and covered up the dark grey then blended it upwards to make all the colors come together.

 

It’s really hard to describe the technique I used to paint the clouds. Basically I got a very small amount of each layer then dabbed it on in the shape I imagined. But It’s much easier to see, so make sure to watch my video!

*coming soon*

 

This is just one part of an entire Bedroom Makeover for R’s big girl room. So make sure to check out the blog post and videos for the other parts!

Have you done a DIY Cloud Ceiling? Did you have one growing up? Leave me a comment or tag me in a picture, I’d love to see it.