When my boyfriend and I first viewed what is now our new apartment, we knew we had to make changes. The paint, as I have mentioned, was a disaster. So as expected, we painted our home an off-white. But then we thought, this place needs some personality. I volunteered the idea of wide horizontal stripes in the bedroom, perhaps in a soft grey? George was on board with it, and soon we were picking out a blue to stripe the bathroom with as well! The bathroom was completed late last week, and half of the bedroom was finished yesterday! I couldn’t be happier with the results – particularly with the grey. The stripes look chic and completely modern and really give the rooms that much needed dose of personality. Here’s how I did it:

First I gathered my materials: FrogTape painter’s tape (extra-good for those clean lines and no paint bleeding), a pencil, a Mr. Clean magic eraser for those mistakes I was bound to make with the pencil (the pencil eraser never works as well on walls) and a metric measuring tape.

The math: Our bathroom wall is 209.44 cm in height. I wanted to do eight stripes, so I divided eight into 209.44 = 26.18 cm per stripe. It is important here not to round your number, otherwise you will end up with a stripe that is bigger, or smaller, than all of the rest at the end.

Pencil-marking the walls: Decide how many plot points you are going to need across the wall to ensure that your tape is straight (if you aren’t using a laser or a chalk string – which I wasn’t.) Our wall is quite small so I decided on three – if you want to be on the safe side, do more, I would recommend at least four points on a small size wall – the tape somehow curves no matter how straight you think it is!

Tip: After repeated attempts at making my marks on the wall; 26.18 cm down, 26.18 cm down, 26.18 cm down, and having the stripes be inconsistent in evenness each time, I realized that by moving the measuring tape down for each stripe I was leaving room for discrepancies. I re-strategized: I calculated at what point on the measuring tape I would have to make a pencil mark for each stripe, as shown in the picture above. To make the math easy for yourself, just add your stripe width (ex. 26.18) until you reach the total height of your wall (ex. 209.44). I made sure to keep the measuring tape perfectly still as I made my way down the wall, then moved across to the middle of the wall to plot my second group of markings and again at the far edge of the wall for my third group.

Note: Our paint is an off-white, not cream, as the lighting here suggests. 

Taping: After plotting all of my pencil marks, I began taping. I held the tape down at one end, carefully pulling it straight across to meet the middle corresponding point on the wall, and then to the end point. After each stripe was completed, I measured the width of the stripe all the way along to be sure that it was even.

Tip: Make sure you are taping on the correct side of your pencil marks; for your stripes lay the tape on the outside of the marks you’ve made. Just so you don’t get confused as to where you are taping, put a piece of tape on the wall where you won’t be painting.

Tip: The worst fear of a painter applying stripes to the wall is that of bleeding. Stripes can be sloppy if paint leaks under the tape and the look of an amateur job will ruin the whole effect, not to mention all the work you’ve put into your project. This is why I used, and recommend FrogTape. It is designed to stop paint from bleeding. The correct way to apply the tape, after you have applied it to the wall, is to drag the corner of your nail across it all the way along as seen above. This makes for a very crisp line.

We chose Sherwin Williams’ Bluebell for the bathroom.

Painting: For painting you will need a small roller and a medium sized foam brush. Use the roller for filling in the stripe, leaving a few centimeters unpainted at the edges. Rollers have a bad habit of somehow smushing paint under tape, thereby creating little messes of paint under your tape, a.k.a. bleeding.

Tip: Use a foam brush, always pulling the paint away from the tape, to finish the edges of your stripes. Because you are being so careful about the edges, no need to get your foam brush loaded with paint. I like to hold the paint can lid with me as a sort of paint-palette and continually add little amounts of paint to my foam brush. This technique also helps to keep your lines clean.

{ Painting-wear. Sweat pants & an old tank }

Removing the tape: Contrary to what seems like the smart move, it is best to pull the tape off while the paint is still wet. If you wait until the paint is dry, you risk cracking off bits of paint with the tape and ruining your work. Pull the tape off slowly and evenly. I love not having to wait for that feeling of satisfaction!

Presto! Fabulous walls. I can’t wait to show you the bedroom as soon as the other wall is completed!

Happy Monday!