How to Not Freak Out While Painting Stripes

 

I'd been wanting to paint stripes somewhere in my house since we moved in, and I finally did it. I love the result and surprised myself with how good it came out. I had nightmares of paint bleeding through, painting the wrong stripe, wrong measurements, crooked lines. Fortunately, none of this happened because I was aptly prepared (the countless hours spent looking at blogs paid off!) 

Oh hey ! I've been trying to think of an accent color for the bathroom - I think the emerald looks great!

I'm so glad this project is over, because it really took over my life the past few days. I kept painting at the most inopportune times because I was just so excited to get it done. Late one night, for example, I told myself I would just do a second coat and remove the tape for one stripe, "just to see if it worked...". Before I could stop myself, it was midnight and I had manically finished painting and removed all of the tape from 90% of the bathroom. Then, dressed and ready for work the next morning, I finished the rest and was so excited to see the finished results.


I won't go into the details of the entire project, there are so many great tutorials out there - I used Unskinny Boppy's , Young House Love's , and Life in Grace's (which was actually my inspiration for this project, below)



Striped bathroom at Life in Grace blog

Because I am pretty clumsy when it comes to DIY projects like this, I wanted to share my tips for how to not freak out while painting stripes on your wall:

 

Tip #1: Measure the entire length of your wall and decide on the quantity and width of stripes. My wall was 88 inches so I decided to make it easy and do 11 -  8 inch stripes. I found drawing it out helped my visual brand, too.



Tip#2: This leads to the next tip - shoot for an odd number. This way your top and bottom stripes are the base color and you don't have to paint stripes that touch the wall and ceiling (less careful, cutting-in painting, which I hate)

Tip #3: Use tape to mark off what not to paint - this was huge for me, as I was sort of in monster-mode and if not for the tape, probably would have accidentally painted a stripe the wrong color.



Tip  #4: Don't bother with the laser level or even a regular level for that matter, just measure and mark off with pencil a few times along the wall then eyeball the tape along the lines. I used a measuring tape, but next time I will use a seamstress tape measure and tape it under the ceiling and mark out my stripe increments all the way down the wall and just keep moving it along the wall.

Tip #5: Don't stress too much about the straightness of the tape or the exact width of the stripes - you'll lose your mind (and maybe throw out a few very unladylike words) I almost started to flip out, then I took a deep breath and decided to get over it. You'll get a hang of the taping, the first couple are tricky then it gets easy and methodical.

 

Tip #6: Get your tools together - I used Scotch Blue Painter's Tape and it worked wonderfully. I also used a 3 inch roller for the stripes and a paint brush for the cutting-in and corners.



Tip #7: After all lines are taped,  paint your base color and lightly over the edge of the tape with a brush (just the tape that will be eventually painted over with your stripes' color) - this seals the tape and makes for perfectly crisp lines.

 

 Tip#8: Paint one coat of the stripes' paint, let dry, paint second coat and immediately remove tape.

Tip #9: If you're doing a bathroom, I highly recommend going with a semi-gloss sheen. If you get your stripes color on the base color, it wipes right off with a damp paper towel.

 

 Tip #10: And lastly, (because I feel this list needed to have ten tips) make sure to have extra of your base color, it's inevitable you'll have to do a little touching up.

There you have it - I hope you try this, it's a lot easier to do than you'd imagine. And the excitement you'll feel (or was it just me?) when you pull off that tape to reveal your perfect stripes makes it absolutely worth it. (I think at one point I even let out an actual squeal of excitement)  I plan to add in a pop of come color (thinking yellow, emerald, or coral), easy to do with some new towels and bath mat. Can't wait to share an updated, less messy picture of the final result!