If you want to add a little of the unusual to a room’s painted walls, why not try adding some stripes to give them a bit more depth and interest? You may not want to pay a decorator to come and add stripes to your wall, but, luckily for you, this is quite an easy job if you understand the underlying method. To give you some courage in attempting this DIY task, here are a few tips to help the job go a little easier.
Preparation
Any decorator will tell you that the finished job is dictated by the preparation put in, and it will be no different for you. Make sure you have all your materials to hand, a good quality brush and a roller, masking tape, a paint kettle, a string line, and dust sheets. My tip is to make a list and have everything ready 2 days before you start. Then nothing can go wrong… hopefully
Make the Area Your Own
Tell your family to give you some space while you work, lock the pets out of the house, and remove any clutter from the wall you are going to paint. This is your workspace so have control over it, and preferably have your family out while you are doing your work.
Choose Your Stripes Well
You should be using a colour wheel like the BBC’s colour wheel to choose the best colours for your stripes, and you will need to decide on the size and direction of your stripes. Remember that vertical stripes make a room look taller and the opposite is true of horizontal stripes.
Drawing the Stripes
There are two methods to mark the lines for your stripes, a string line or pencil and straight edge. The string line means that you string a line between 2 points (either end of your line), covering the line with chalk and pinging it onto the wall (leaving a line), and painting up to the edge. This is actually an easier and faster way than measuring and drawing, and is how I would suggest you draw your lines. My tip would be to use a professional masking tape such as JTape to paint up to after marking the wall. This is easier, faster and will give you more confidence when painting up to the lines.
Painting
Finally, you get to paint your stripe. If you have followed my advice and used some masking tape, you now need to paint up to and slightly over the tape, and then paint using a roller in the centre of your marked lines; you will find this fast and effiecient. You should apply at least 2 coats, leaving enough time for the paint to dry. Make sure you leave as long as it says on the tin, but add a few hours because of different working conditions. This is a great tip, as your room may have conditions that prolong drying time
The End
Well, not quite, you now need to remove the masking tape and tidy up the dust sheets etc. Please remember that it is better to remove the tape when it is not completely dry as if it is completely dry it may pull paint off the wall. A handy tip is to have a straight edge and a new craft knife handy. You can place the straight edge along the edge of the tape and cut along it with the craft knife. This will save any heartache over your stripes being ruined at the last moment.
Now it is The End.