a walk through: The Stripe Type

Monday, September 26, 2011

The Stripe Type

I'm very late posting this, but I got super motivated over Memorial Day weekend and striped up our little hallway!

I love stripes and had thought for a long time that I wanted to do stripes somewhere in our house, maybe a bedroom. For some reason, I had never thought of our hallway until I went to, my sister, Emily's house and saw what she had done in a little hallway in her house. She is super crafty and did this with stamps!

A few step-by-step pics...

Before...

I decided on 6" stripes. I figured that was going to leave the least amount of awkward leftover space. At the very top, there is about 7-8" inches of wall color. In a small hallway like this people are looking down a lot more than they are looking up, so I started my stripes at the baseboards and left the extra space for the top. It's not noticeable to me at all now.

First, I taped out my lines, finding a happy medium between truly level and what looked right to my eye. Our house is old and un-level, and I often find what looks right to my eye is the better guide. Something can be "level" but if it's not parallel with the baseboards and crown-molding...it's not gonna look right. Also, a note for dummies...the stripes should continue straight through doorways and come out the same color on the other side.

Next, I painted over my tape with the wall-color, Benjamin Moore Coastal Fog, to prevent my accent stripe color from bleeding.

Then, I painted my second color, which is my trim color- Benjamin Moore Sandy Hook Gray. But, before painting the second color, I put Xs on the stripes that would be painted to make sure they would work out right and not leave me with too much tone-on-tone trim/stripe action. However, a little of this was inevitable. I also did this to prevent dumb mistakes...which are always a strong possibility.