Stripes and Laundry

My project this weekend was to tackle my laundry room. It had become a junk/storage room with no character or style. I decided I could do something out of the ordinary here because who really looks in the laundry room. I painted horizontal stripes on the wall and I am so in love with this room now. It came out better than I ever imagined!!!!

The wall color was already White Linen from Benjamin Moore, for the stripes I went with Manchester Tan. The room is small and I wanted a calm nautical look so I picked some light colors and went horizontal . Cause everyone knows horizontal stripes make you look fat, and I needed this room to be fat. I planned on working on this project all day Saturday but it surprising only took me about 4 hours with an 1 hour break for drying time!!!

List of things you will need:

long level

painters tape

measuring tape

paint brush

small roller

paint

Step 1 - TAPE: I decided on 9" stripes so I got my tape measure out and started measuring from the ceiling down. I used small pieces of tape to mark off every 9 inches (I did not want to deal with pencil marks on the wall). The hardest part was remembering that the tape goes on the outside of the stripes you are painting and inside on the part you are leaving alone. Basically the stripe part you are painting will measure 9" and the stripe part you are not painting will measure smaller (I used 1" tape so my "don't paint" stripe was 7"). And now I have confused all of you - I promise that is the most thinking you will have to do for this project. Use your long level when taping the wall so you will have a nice clean, even stripe!!! Once you have all your tape on the wall I used a credit card and passed it over all the tape to make sure in was stuck on the wall and to smooth out any bubbles in the tape.

Step 2 - BRUSH: Take out your brush before the roller. Use the brush for the areas near the ceiling, trim or adjacent wall where you need to paint a straight line. Then use an almost dry brush and paint along the edges of the tape. This will help you prevent any bleeding through the tape.

Step 3 - ROLLER: I waited about 30 minutes for the brushed edges to dry then I took my roller out and got to rolling on the stripe. I went with an eggshell finish and almost wish I would have picked up a satin finish paint to give the room a little depth with the different finishes. After waiting an hour I rolled a second coat of paint on my stripes.

Step 4 - TAPE OFF - It is very important that you take the tape off as soon as you finish rolling. Do not wait till the paint has dried, pull that tape off the minute you finish rolling the second coat. If you wait till it is dry the paint will peel and mess up your pretty straight lines.

And here you go, a before and after picture......