How to sponge paint a neutral wall to hide defects?

Oo what a cool look! My advice would be to go slow and take your time. Pour out a little bit of paint at a time and work on small areas.

1. Paint your wall the color/tone that you want for the overall look

2. Using a sea sponge (wet and ring out thoroughly), sponge on the darkest accent color.

3. Do the same with a very light highlight color (white/cream/or the lightest tone of your chosen color)

4. Using your base paint color, sponge over to blend everything.

Do not over sponge, as it will look muddy.

You can do a combination of flat and shiny paint finishes for an interesting effect.

Latex paint is fine - no expensive glazes are necessary.

Do your corners and edges first with a small piece of sponge - use tape along the ceiling and floor boards.

Good luck!

Excellent directions already given. I think you should go for your favorite colors and styles wherever you want. I tried to avoid using blue for years simply because I thought it would be too typical, too trite. But middle blue is the one color my husband and I both like. I finally gave in to my true instincts. Only one of the walls in the house is painted and it is Mystic Sea, which I thought was blue-green but it is mostly dark green, and I'm trying to live with it since I picked it out. But now there are middle blue touches all over the house, on decorative pillows, our bedroom curtains, vases, placemats, etc. and my husband and I are both more comfortable in our house. Best wishes in your house.

I would steer away from sponge painting, and look into distressed painting.

Sponge painting is a bit dated. Sorry, as I know sponge painting is easy. An easy way to distress paint a wall is to take 2-3 colors that are fairly close to each other in color and intensity, and blend them together as you paint. It will give depth to the paint job, and hide some of those blemishes.