Looking to add some fun to your walls? Tired of the "builder white" or "Realtor beige" paint scheme?

There are several ways to get a textured wall effect. You'll need:

• 2 shades of a color of paint -- they should be 2-3 shades apart, depending upon the contrast you want;
• a glaze, designed for textured painting; and
• a wide ( 3-4 inches), rectangular brush and some rags.

Check any home improvement or paint store for these items

Begin by preparing the wall -- washing it, patching holes, priming it if necessary. Then apply one paint color (using regular rollers and small paint brushes for the trim) as the base and let it dry for 3-4 hours.

Mix the other color with the glaze (see can for proportions) and apply it to the wall with the large brush. Don't let it sit too long after mixing it with the glaze. Use the brush to make X's in a small section, then expand it to the rest of each wall.

If the "X" is too structured, it might look unnatural, so try doing a little bit of a swoosh with the paint brush. You can do the entire room with this technique to get what we call an Italian restaurant finish on the wall.

Another approach:

• have someone follow behind you with a piece of cloth that is either crumpled, twisted or rolled.
• Use it to blot out the paint in irregular patterns throughout the wall.
• Each type of cloth treatment will create a different effect.
• If you want something that is bumpier, try blotting paint on with the front of the brush instead of the normal painting stroke using the side of the brush.

Here's How to Test

If you are not sure which treatment to use, buy some large poster board to test it out on. Wait until it dries to decide. Once you add textured painting to the wall, let it dry to see the real effect. It can look pretty haphazard if you're just looking at a small section before it dries.

A word of warning -- the glaze makes it tough to go back over an area once you've painted it, even if it's 5 minutes after you painted that section. So, if you see something you don't like, fix it quickly or wait until the wall dries and try to touch it up later.