One of my favorite things about
Houzz.com is the instant feedback I receive from users who add my photos to their ideabooks. I was elated to find out that the recent
boy's room project had been saved to hundreds of ideabooks in just a few short weeks.
I think one of the primary reasons is, no doubt, the bold painted wall stripe we added. However, it dawned on me recently that, even though we chronicled the entire process, I never actually shared how we went about painting the stripe.
So, let's take a brief look back.
We began by carefully planning out the size and pattern. We knew that we wanted the overall stripe to be about 19-20" thick. So, we divide the strip into segments, planning the thickness of each. And because I'm a very visual person, it helped me to use markers.
I also wanted to make sure that we knew exactly how the taping would work, so we practiced on my wall before getting to the client's home.
Once we arrived at the client's home with the plan, there were a number of tools that were essential:
- Pencils
- Painter's Tape (Scotch Blue)
- Tape Measure
- Laser Level
I cannot stress that last one enough. I don't know how we would've done it without a
laser level. By far, the most difficult part was marking and drawing the lines straight and then taping them off. We used a pencil to mark a small faint line about every four inches or so. Then we used those markings to align our tape. We used the laser level to also recheck the straightness of the line once we were done with all of the taping.
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| Couldn't have done it without Chelsea. |
It was during this step that we realized that the original pattern was going to take way too long to tape off and even longer to paint, so we edited it down to a more basic pattern. The best laid plans...
I knew I wanted to create a focal point with a large box between the beds (inspired by this
VIDEO). So we literally just went with what looked best in terms of size and placement.
I'm extremely impatient and painting three or four coats just didn't appeal to me, so we used paint and primer in one. It cost more, but totally worth it in time saved.
I actually purchased both
Valspar and
Olympic since one of the colors used was on the "Oops!" paint rack for next to nothing. I'm here to report that the
Valspar was far superior to the
Olympic. Just for your information. There's very little difference in price, but I had to work much harder with the Olympic.
Next, resist the temptation to peel off the paint before it's dried. We waited overnight.
Lastly, anticipate mistakes. Inevitably you may go out of the lines. I would suggest (if possible) having the base room color on hand for touch ups. We also made a major boo-boo realizing that because of our tape placement, the large box was not actually going to be connected to stripe. Note: This was not in the original plan. Lucky for us, it ultimately looked pretty good that way.
I think the result was great, especially for a couple of first-timers and most importantly, it added visual interest to an otherwise nondescript space.
Leave me a comment. I'd love to hear from you.
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