My own DIY Project: Stripes

About 6 (?) years ago when I went to visit my cousin in San Antonio and saw stripes in their kitchen I've been wanting to do the same.  I would've never thought of something that creative before and loved the classic look it brought to the room.  So at that moment I placed it on my "To do. . . one day" list LOL 

When we moved into our home about 3 years ago, I knew this was the house I wanted to do the stripes.  Now I needed to figure out which room, what colors and MORE importantly (!!!) how to go about doing stripes on a textured wall!  One and a half years into our home we finally decided to paint our kitchen, living room, and entry way.  My dad came over to help us - THANK GOODNESS - since it was such a large task.  After it was all said and done it took Scott, my dad and I close to 10 hours, working non-stop, to paint this.

Once the color was on the walls I knew just what color and where I was going to do the stripes.  I wanted some sort of distinction between the living room and kitchen.  One thing that drew us to this house is the "Great Room" (aka the openness between the kitchen and living room).  Every house we looked at were individual rooms and that's not something we wanted for us.  So I told Scott, who wasn't too keen on the striped look, what my ultimate goal was.  Again, it was on my "to do. . . one day" list so I didn't pursue it since I still was unsure about how to put stripes on a textured wall without the jagged lines. 

After researching, asking around, and an extra little push of recieving a gift card from my parents for Christmas LOL!, I was going to do it no matter HOW hard the work was!!  Everyone I knew who's done stripes in their own house have told me the horror stories of how hard it is.  From measuring all along the wall, to placing dots, then to putting the painters' tape on the walls and then re-measuring for verification that the painters' tape was indeed straight (vertically).  So last Wednesday after gathering many rolls of painters' tape - I ended up using 2 1/2 rolls - and supplies I went to the daunting task of taping.  OMG Let me tell you that was W-O-R-K!!!  After having to re-do it after working for 1 1/2 days on it because I did it wrong (long story) I was finally finished taping by Monday evening. 

My mom and I were the painters and I think we did an exceptional job, if I say so myself!!  We worked non-stop with maybe 2-15 min breaks (1 for lunch and 1 for a true break) and it took forever.  We started around 9am and finished a little after 4pm.  What took so long is that doing stripes is 90% 'cutting in' with 10% of rolling so it's lots of work.  After talking to a co-worker of mine who painted stripes in Her house and telling me to take the tape off the second I'm done with that particular stripe, I'm glad I listened!!  Doing so gave my mom and I the opprotunity to touch up any areas where the brush went under the tape.  Thankfully there were very few since we pressed as hard as we could right before we painted near the tape!  I think THAT was key to painting stripes on a textured wall.  Press as HARD as you can on the tape, paint lightly x2, roll x 2 and then take the tape off. 

I was SO happy with the work we put into this.  It was such a fun opprotunity to do this project with my mom!!  Here is the progression of our day:

Prior to painting.  The small painters' tape is the section to paint:

The start of it:

The windows.  Time consuming!

A little less than 3/4 done. 

The hardest part -

around the doorways (pantry and leading to the garage)

Excuse the mess.

Above the Fridge and cabniets

The Texture vs. the straight (YES I said Straight!) line. 

We won!!! LOL

THE FINISHED PRODUCT with the curtains, blinds and art deco up. 

(bad lighting, sorry!)