I've Got Stripes

Have you ever heard that old Johnny Cash song, "I've Got Stripes"? It's been playing through my head all weekend as we worked on our latest project.

Two years ago I tackled my older boys' room. I wish I had a before picture to show you the plain white walls, mismatching beds, and shabby old dresser. My boys' room is small and I went with very minimalistic look. I wanted to keep it simple so the room felt bigger. The problem is I left out two very important elements of design: pattern and texture. I loved the room's simplicity, but it definitely felt like it was lacking something. I finally decided that it was time to add some pattern to the room.  I'd pinned quite a few pictures of stripes and thought that they would work well as an accent wall. 

Knowing that hubby and I were going to be stuck at home for the holiday weekend, I went to Home Depot last Thursday and stocked up on some supplies for a long weekend of DIYing. I'm sure my husband was just thrilled at the idea of spending his Labor Day weekend doing projects instead of boating and camping like we had planned.

 After much internal debate about what color to do the stripe, I decided on white (I used White on White by Glidden). 

First off we measured our wall and it was 96 inches tall.  I decided that I wanted to do 10 inch stripes and add a new 6 inch baseboard. 

Starting from the ceiling, we marked off every 10 inches with a pencil on both sides of the wall.

Then we used a chalk line to make our line across the wall. I held the end of the chalk line on one side of the wall, and hubby held it to the other side and then he snapped it. If you are unsure of what a chalk line is, it is a little box full of chalk that holds a string that rolls out much like a tape measure.  The string is covered in chalk and when you pull it back and snap it, it leaves a straight line.

(Oh, and sorry for this crummy picture.  The lighting in this room is awful.)

Then you tape.  And tape.  And tape.  Here is where the what NOT to do part comes in. First, do NOT use cheap tape. I highly recommend Frog Tape.  I've painted a lot in the past few years and it has by far  been the best tape to use.  Even though I knew I loved Frog tape, I grabbed a roll of blue tape when I was at Home Depot and I paid dearly for it when the paint leaked through and I had to re-tape everything and do it again. And now, an important step that I forgot.  After you tape, paint the tape down with the color of the wall.  For instance, my wall was already gray (Smooth Stone by Glidden) so I would have painted the tape with gray.  This seals the tape down so you don't get leaks.  Knowing this would have saved me a lot of time in touch up.

After you've taped, its pretty self explanatory, you paint!  And hopefully, on your first try, your stripes will look like this.   I'm so glad to finally have some pattern in the room.  And I'm also thankful for new, taller baseboard.  We've been slowly replacing all of our 3-inch builder grade baseboard and it adds such a nice touch.

Now, its on to finding something that is boyish and has texture...any thoughts?