The White (and Green) Stripes

I love our striped dining room wall.  I think my favorite part about it is that it was super easy to do and it was our first attempt at painting stripes.  Plus it turned out great!  My husband had the genius idea of using the green from the kitchen (I thought we’d use the gray from the living room to tie it in) because they are two different finishes of paint and because our dining room chairs have green in them.  The ivory is a satin, and the green is a semi-gloss = instant wow factor…like wallpaper.  But without the glue.

So what is the secret to painting stripes?  The answer is math…and gravity.  I knew I wanted an odd number of stripes so that the ivory was at each end.  I measured the length of the wall and did a little figuring.  I took the length of the wall in inches, and divided it by 7.  This gave me about 16.75″ per stripe so I decided to up the width of the green stripes to an even 17″ so that they are wider than the ivory.  17″ x 4 = 68″.  I then took the width of the wall, subtracted 68″ and this gave me the total width of the ivory stripes, which I then divided by 5 and now I knew how wide each ivory stripe would be (10″ in the center, and the corner ones are a little narrower but you can’t even tell!).

I’m not sure how others lay out their stripes with tape, but this is how we did it!

First step:  Paint the entire wall the lighter color (in our case – an ivory called Acadia White by Benjamin Moore in the satin finish).

Before I show you the next step, here is the little journey from where we started to where it is today.  Here is my husband, Glenn, on the walk-through with the real estate agent.  Notice the wagon wheel light fixture and nasty carpet in the dining area!

Here it is (below) with the carpet ripped out, deciding which flooring to use.  We chose the darker laminate.

Okay, now fast forward a little more and here we are.

Step Two: find the center of the wall and make a small mark.  We did all the marks at the ceiling because we used a weighted string to make sure our tape was straight.

Step Three: measure half the width of your center stripe to the left and right of your center mark.  Our center stripe is green, which is 17 inches, so we measured 8.5″ either way.  Make your mark at the ceiling.  We then made more marks alternating 10″ and 17″.

Step four: Tap a small nail or brad into your mark, attaching a string that is as tall as the wall, weighting it (we used a heavy screw).  This will give you a perfectly vertical line to tape against. If you’re working as a team, one person can hold the string while the other tapes, or you can tap another brad into the other end to hold your string tight while you tape.

Step five: Tape along your string.  Make sure your tape is taped down in the base color (ivory) so that you’re painting in the correct stripes.  It can get a little confusing!

Step six: Fill in any nail holes that you made with putty and then paint your colored stripes!  We used “Misted Fern” in a semi-gloss by Benjamin Moore.  Touch up the base color where the holes were if needed.  I used a tiny paintbrush for touch-ups near the stripes.  We also always make sure to remove the tape as soon as possible for the crispest line, and you don’t want it to dry too much so it doesn’t peel off with the tape.  We were pleasantly surprised with how crisp the lines were (taping trim can be messy sometimes – ugh!), even with a textured wall.

Step seven: Stand back and admire your faux-wallpaper wall!  We were surprised at how easy it was, and how nice it turned out.  Sorry for the lack of “during” pictures, but we did it before I even started this blog!!  If I would have only known…

This is what it used to look like, before the new pendant and sideboard (below):

And here is what it looks like today!  Some of you are probably sick of me talking about my dining room, but it seems like such a huge impact using leftover paint, a $50 antique store sideboard, a discounted pendant lamp, and a free table and chair set!

Do any of you have a striped wall project (or any fancy painting project) you’d like to link us to?? I’d love to see it!  Thanks again for stopping by!