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    Home » Home DIY » Paint Wall Stripes Easily in Three Hours

    Paint Wall Stripes Easily in Three Hours

    Last Updated Date: July 22, 2021 | Published Date: April 13, 2015 by Seng Nickerson

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    Learn how to easily paint wall stripes with straight lines in under a few hours!

    Painting stripes on your walls makes a dramatic impact in any room. Ansley's room has been a work in progress for the last three years. As you can see, her room was definitely missing something even with her fancy chandelier and beautiful furniture. Here's a sneak peek of her upcoming room reveal:

    paint wall stripes with perfectly straight wall stripes from sengerson.com with tips on controlling paint bleed

    I presented the idea of stripes to the hubs. Astonishingly enough, Ryan didn't oppose to paint striped walls! The hardest part about this project was getting him to help me with it - it took about 6 months of coercing.

    This painting project was easy - it took one Saturday morning. From start to finish, it was about three hours. And the wall turned out with PERFECT stripes! You can achieve the same look by following these steps.

    paint wall stripes with 4 tips for perfectly straight wall stripes from sengerson.com with tips on controlling paint bleed

    STEP 1

    Figure out the width of your stripes.

    If you are one that needs hard fast rules, make it a goal to have an odd number of stripes. Grouping with odd numbers is always good design. A nice wide stripe width you should aim for is around 8 to 14 inches.

    In our case, we had a 93 inch wall. I wanted 7 stripes which turned out to be approximately 13.25 inches.

    Tip: If you are around an inch from having a clean width size like we were, you can always round so that you can leave any "left over" at the bottom of the wall. This would mean you could have a slightly thinner or thicker base stripe at the bottom of your wall. No would would be any wiser. For example, for Ansley's room, I could have rounded to 13 inches from 13.25 inches. However, Ryan adamantly opposed this (possibly due to his meticulous nature as an engineer). Instead, these were the numbers we came up with:

    width-sizes

    STEP 2

    Decide whether you want to mess with taping off your trim or crown molding.

    If you don't want to deal with masking off the trim and molding, you have then decided that your top and bottom stripes will be your base color. If you've followed my advice in the first step by having an odd number of stripes, this has then allowed you to leave your existing base color at the top and bottom of the wall without having to touch your trim or moulding. Time saver!

    In our case, we decided the opposite. Of course right?  To make a long story short, I made him recently put an anchor hole for heavy decor that I (at the time) thought I HAD TO HAVE above the headboard, which I then regretted. So I had him putty and sand it. So instead of "spot painting", he decided that he would just paint the top and bottom with our chosen alternating color.

    paint striped walls

    STEP 3

    Use a steel tape measure and hash mark your column widths.

    Make sure you start at the ceiling and use a steel tape measure. Starting at the ceiling is key, as it allows you to read the number on the tape measure accurately.

    Measure down, and then go 18 inches over and do it again. Repeat this step all the way down the wall until the stripes are hash marked off.

    paint striped walls

    STEP 4

    Get out your Frog Tape and connect your hash marks.

    You are going to start connecting the hash marks with your Frog Tape. I know some blogs say that you should use a laser level, a level, and even a yard stick. However, we found that connecting the Frog Tape from hash mark to hash mars worked just fine since the marks were only 18 inches a part.

    It is SUPER important that you do not skimp on the part of buying GOOD painter's tape. It won't stick to the wall if you buy the generic, so do yourself a favor and go with the brand name, good stuff for this.

    Before you tape, make sure you are taping on the correct side of the lines so that all your paint is on the correct side of the stripe. Triple check this.

    To be sure you did it right, if you went with the design of having the same "width" for each of your stripes, after you finish taping, it will "look" like you have some wider and narrow stripes, but that just means you have done your due diligence and taped correctly!

    paint wall stripes with tips on how to create crisp lines

    Again, we just eye balled it with Frog Tape to connect the hash marks, but if you wanted to go all out, you could use a level or yard stick to do this. We did it the easy way by just taping it and skipping that step.

    STEP 5

    X marks the spot NOT to paint

    Mark an X to indicate the area you will NOT be painting (e.g. keeping it the base color). When you are this close to the wall, this simple reminder will help! You do not want to realize later that you have to repaint the trim or crown molding!

    STEP 6

    BIG 'OL TIP: Seal the edge before painting

    Use the base color to seal the edge of where you will be painting the alternating paint color. For full clarification, you will be painting the alternating color ON TOP of this base color.

    By sealing the edge with the base color, it will help create absolutely perfect wall stripes with no bleed! It will ensure you have smooth and crisp lines, as you do not want the stripe color to bleed underneath your tape (another reason for buying that Frog Tape we talked about above).

    To seal, use a 2 inch paint brush or small art brush - and don't overload your brush with paint. Stroke the tape brush inward towards where you will be painting the alternating paint color so you are pulling the paint away from the tape line (it makes it less likely to seep underneath the tape).

    paint striped walls

    STEP 7

    Paint.

    Pretty obvious, but paint your alternating color after the base seal has dried. The standard I've seen is that two coats of the alternating color should do the trick using a medium size paint roller.

    STEP 8

    Pull off the tape while its still wet!!

    Make sure you pull of the tape after the second coat. This is uber important - as this will be the final tip that ensures you have perfectly painted striped walls!

    That's it...you should have perfect paint striped walls!

    REFERENCE

    In case you love these colors as much as I do, here are the colors I used for Ansley's room. I was going for a white, lavender, and grey theme:

    Base color: Benjamin Moore's Antique Pearl - The color on the website doesn't do it justice. It has this light lavender and grey tone to it.

    Alternating color: Behr Marquee Classy MQ5-4  - Honestly, I love Benjamin Moore paint but I can never find a store that's openo on the weekend that carries BM. It seems like the only stores that carry it are stores specifically geared for contractors. My next best bet was to try the Behr Marquee line from Home Depot. After using it in Ansley's room, we are a huge fan of it. The color was spot on - it has a purple/grey feel to it in a darker tone that our base color.

    Related Post: Painted Basement Ceiling

    PIN ME

    A summary of my big tips are listed here in this image (feel free to pin and share):

    paint wall stripes: 4 tips for perfectly straight wall stripes from sengerson.com with tips on controlling paint bleed

    Here's the before and after:

    paint wall stripes: 4 tips for perfectly straight wall stripes from sengerson.com with tips on controlling paint bleed

    Before you begin your project, some other awesome ideas for painting striped walls include:

    • Using the SAME paint color, but alternating with egg shell/flat and semi-gloss. I did this for my powder room, but with stencils and not stripes (oh, and possibly added a little bit of gold glitter flakes).
    • Multiple narrower sized rows to provide more of a visual appeal.
    • Chevron (way to risky for me to try) - my fear is how much of a trend this is (but isn't this striped wall thing a trend? who am I to judge).

    Check out my post on shared bedroom ideas to check out the final reveal!

    Other Paint Posts You Might Like

    If you liked this wall stripe painting post, check out my other paint posts as well:

    • Revere Pewter by Benjamin Moore in a Real House

    « Loose Park Family Photography Session - Spring 2014
    Sea Life Kansas City Review and Tour »


    Disclosure

    Many of the links on this blog are affiliate links. Sengerson.com receives a small comission when certain items are purchased, but the price is the same for you. Sengerson.com is a participant in the Amazon LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.


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    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Pia

      September 07, 2015 at 2:20 am

      This is a fantastic tutorial Seng.
      Really detailed + really helpful.

      I'm pinning it and sharing it on my S.M.
      Thank you!
      <3
      Pia

      Reply
      • Seng

        September 09, 2015 at 9:22 pm

        Thank you for sharing Pia!

        Reply
    2. Nikki Frank-Hamilton

      April 29, 2015 at 10:02 pm

      The room was beautiful before, but now it is gorgeous! So well put together, the stripes accent the great furniture and the chandelier!! Great job, we have done stripes, and it takes me a bit longer than this, the planning seems to take the most time though!

      Reply
    3. Sandy

      April 13, 2015 at 11:15 am

      i seriously LOVE this! i wish we could paint our walls, but our house right now is rented. 🙁 maybe when we move back to KC!

      xo,
      Sandy
      Sandy a la Mode

      Reply
      • Seng

        April 18, 2015 at 9:28 am

        Thanks Sandy!!

        Reply

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    Seng is a life and style blogger for the modern mom. She is a mom of four that works outside of the home balancing the delicate balance of her career and being present for her family.
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