Striped and ready for action (From Living Northeast)

Striped and ready for action

3:13pm Thursday 5th February 2009 in

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If you want a feature wall, but your wallpapering skills aren’t great, painting stripes is a fairly easy way to create a unique look. Be sure of the kind of stripes you want before you begin and have something to copy if it’s a complicated design.

● If the wall is painted a strong colour and you don’t want that colour in the finished design, paint over it with as many coats of another colour as it takes to cover it, or use a (white) base coat paint, which is designed to cover strong colours quickly and easily. Don’t continue with your stripes until this is completely dry.

● Mark out your stripes using a tape measure/ruler and pencil and then stand back to check that the stripes are uniform and that you like the look you’ve created.
Use a spirit level to ensure they’re straight. Vertical stripes will make the ceiling appear higher, while horizontal ones will make the wall seem wider.

● Use masking tape along the relevant pencil lines when you’re ready to paint the first colour.
Low-tack tape is a good idea because it is less likely to pull off the paint underneath when you remove it.

● If you’re using a roller, work from top to bottom and don’t overload it with paint, as this may bleed under the masking tape. If you’re using a paintbrush, paint over the tape inwards into the stripe when doing the edges to try to prevent the paint bleeding underneath. Peel the tape off very carefully, but be prepared to do some touching up.