From the beginning I knew I wanted an accent wall, although I briefly bounced between a few different ideas I constantly came back to horizontal stripes.
There are a few different ways people do striped walls, this is what I found worked best for me. But before any calculations or prepping, spend some time planning out what you really want. I had a lot of trouble settling on what colors would become the base color and the stripes; pink on pink, pink and white, pink and grey or somehow adding in that mint. If you're painting a new base you are supposed to allow at least 4 hours of dry time before prepping for stripes, I left mine overnight. I also had to decide how thick I wanted the stripes, a lot of big paint companies claim stripes look best between 4-12 inches, I settled with 7 inches after holding the measuring tape against the wall to get an idea of what it would look like. Did you know that horizontal stripes will make a room appear wider while vertical stripes will make ceilings seem higher than they are - all tricks of the eye.
You will need:
- Step ladder or stool (maybe that's just me?)
- Painters tape
- Measuring tape
- Construction level
- Pencil
- Small roller (and/or) brush
- Paint!
STEP ONE: CALCULATE
Honestly, I'm not so good at math, so if this is feeling a little daunting to you don't worry - it isn't nearly as complicated as it seems. Start by measuring the height of the wall, if you're doing vertical stripes measure the length instead, I decided to round down to 91 inches after getting 91.4 since that .4 meant one stripe would be a tiny bit larger anyway. I grabbed my calculator (... ahem, my phone) and divided 91 by 7 and got 13.
If you can't decide on the size of your stripes you can always reverse this calculation by dividing the number of stripes you want, if you use an odd number you will have the same color on top and bottom, choose a smaller number for fewer but larger stripes (try 5) or a bigger number for many thin stripes (try 17).
As I mentioned before, I ended up with a small decimal (this can happen after you divide too), what will end up happening is one of your stripes will be less than an inch larger than the others. Before you start to have a confused meltdown because math is hard, I know I did right about here, just round down! You won't be able to tell the difference, especially once things like baseboards or crown molding come into play and your furniture moves in.
STEP TWO: DRAW IT BEFORE YOU TAPE IT
It may seem like an extra step, I know I felt that way and tried to go straight to taping, but it is totally worth the effort and it wont take nearly as long as you think. Starting from the bottom corner use the measuring tape to mark where your stripe will start, then line up the level (and make sure it is level) and draw away.
STEP THREE: TAPE AWAY!
This isn't horribly complicated, just take your time and keep track of which color will go where, for the stripes made of your base coat tape inside your drawn lines and for your accent color line your tape up on the outside of those lines since you only need to paint your accent color now.
It isn't necessary but I put little bits of tape onto the stripes that I wouldn't be painting, the size difference should be enough to tell which ones get the new paint and which ones will be the base coat, but I wanted to make sure if I wasn't thinking straight I still wouldn't accidentally paint an extra stripe pink.
STEP FOUR: NOW PAINT!
FINALLY! It's the moment we've all been waiting for, planning and day dreaming - it is finally time to paint those stripes! Grab your roller or brush and paint away, I work from the bottom up, from drawing those lines to pulling off the tape, so once that last stripe was painted I jumped off the ladder and went to my bottom corner. I ended up doing two coats, of course make your own judgement - can you get away with just one coat? do you need a third for perfect coverage? Just like before once I painted that last stripe on top I was off the ladder and at the bottom corner, which was starting to dry already, to move onto step five.
STEP FIVE: THE BIG REVEAL
To prevent paint from being taken off the wall (and subsequently wrecking your otherwise beautiful accent wall) I peel the tape off before everything is dry starting at the bottom. It is a little nerve wracking but you'll soon see that there is no ill effect as you pull the tape away and finally all that hard work reveals your perfectly straight stripes.
This whole process from start to finish took less than two hours, I could have probably been finished shortly after the hour mark but stopped to paint a final coat of pink on the other walls.
I don't know what it is about paint but it absolutely transforms a room and now we're ready to start moving in our little Lilly's furniture!
xo, Anne
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