Easy Painted DIY Star Wall

This DIY star wall is a quick an easy way to create a fun and impactful accent wall in any space!

Sometimes there are things that we need (or want) to have in our homes that aren’t necessarily pretty. Trash cans. Kids’ toys. Laundry hampers. The list goes on and on.

When I was planning out my boys’ tween hangout room, I realized that I was going to have to have two such items in the space, and they were BIG. Caleb’s keyboard for his piano lessons and the TV we planned to mount for the boys’ video game consoles were both going to end up on the same wall, so I had a few choices to make.

The keyboard wall before we started working on the room.

I could just pretend that wall doesn’t exist and not show it in any pictures. Or I could come up with a way to camouflage the pieces and turn that wall into a highlight rather than an eyesore!

Thankfully, since the TV and keyboard were both primarily black, camouflage was a very viable option. So I started trying to think of ideas that would be fun for a kid room and wouldn’t make the space look like a cave.

I came up with the idea to create a star wall and though I was nervous about it initially, it ended up being one of the easiest accent walls I’ve ever done!

How to Paint a Night Sky Accent Wall

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Step 1- Gather the supplies for the star wall.

This accent wall only needed a few basic supplies, which was one of the things I loved about it! Here’s what I used:

Dark Paint. Black, dark gray, or a dark blue would all work. I used Behr Dark Secret, which is very, very dark gray.

White Paint Pen (I used this one.)

Paint Brush

Paint Roller

Roller Tray

Painter’s Tape (optional)

Step 2- Paint your wall.

I started by painting my wall in the dark paint color, Behr Dark Secret. Since my ultimate goal was to hide the TV and keyboard as well as possible, I just covered the entire wall evenly with paint.

Dark Secret is not one of Behr’s Marquee colors, but I still had it mixed in the Marquee paint because it gives the best coverage of any paint I’ve used. I only had to do one coat of paint plus a few little touchups here and there. (This isn’t an ad for Behr– I just really love their Marquee paint!!)

While I painted my wall evenly, Carrie from Lovely Etc. also did a starry accent wall in her home, and she added lighter spots on her wall so that the it would look more dimensional like a night sky. It turned out beautifully, so if you just want a star wall and aren’t really camouflaging like I was, that is definitely an option to consider. You can see her helpful tutorial here.

Painter’s tape is your friend.

I just cut in on the edges of my painted wall by hand, but if I was doing it again, I would definitely use painter’s tape to help make a crisper line.

Even with a fairly steady hand, when there is a dark color meeting a much lighter color, any variation in the line is obvious, and it didn’t come out nearly as crisp as I would have liked. Lesson learned!

Step 3- Add the “stars.”

My “stars” were really just dots that I made with a white paint pen. I did mostly tiny dots over most of the wall, but here and there I would make bigger dots to add some variation. I also added in some thicker groupings of dots to look like shooting stars.

For the shooting stars, I found that I liked the look best when I had one bigger circle at the “point” of the star, and then a bunch of smaller dots fanning away from it in a loose triangular shape.

I also did some clusters that were more amoeba-like just to change it up a bit. If you’re really ambitious, you could add in some constellations as well.

I didn’t have a grand plan going in with the stars. I just was sure to make them random rather can creating a pattern. (Which is harder than it sounds. Our eyes automatically try to create pattern, I think.)

To make sure I was maintaining my randomness with my star patterns, I would just step back every once in a while to see the entire wall at once. I could then spot any areas that needed more stars or where I needed to create some variation.

Step 4- Enjoy your beautiful star wall!

I was actually kind of shocked at how easy this night sky accent wall was to create! After it was painted dark, I bet it only took me about 30 minutes to add the stars.

Plus I didn’t have to mess with any stencils, and it was much, much cheaper than wallpaper would have been. And for a play space that will probably change as my boys get older and have different interests, quick and inexpensive was the goal! 😉

It may have been a very simple wall to create, but it really made a big impact in the room! Let’s take a look at the before and after: