How to paint stripes on walls: tips, tricks and tutorials

I went bold with stripes in the nursery.  It adds a fun accent of color without being overwhelming .  It’s extremely masculine and adds interest.  However if you are painting bold blue, brown and red stripes on the wall  you better know what you’re doing!  Fortunately I really researched how to paint stripes before I   taped a single wall.  Here are the tutorials that I found the most useful:

Classy Clutter has a few posts on painting wall stripes.  Her tutorial mentions two different methods on getting perfect stripes and her thoughts on comparing the two.  You can see that tutorial here – https://www.classyclutter.net/2012/02/stripe-wars.html

Emily A. Clark gives a great tip she got from her painter called dry brushing.  You can read about it here – https://emilyaclark.blogspot.com/2010/07/lessons-in-painting-striped-walls.html

Unskinny Boppy also has some great pointers that I used – https://unskinnyboppy.com/2012/02/lazy-girls-timesaving-tips-for-painting/

Here’s the process I ended using to get my stripes.

Using a laser level that could mount to the wall I taped off the walls.  Note:  to work around corners and pop-outs you really want to use a laser level because it makes it so much easier.  However  on some level models ( like the one I was using)  you can tilt the laser so be sure to check that the light is level.

After taping the walls ( and this took the most time) I pushed down on the tape with a paint stick ( and truth is I wish I took a little more time with this step and used the credit card).

I then painted along the edges of the tape with the base paint and let it dry to seal the tape.

Then to be extra safe I dry brushed the edges in the color the stripe was going to be.

Then I grabbed my husband and we painted the stripes alternating between rolling and painting to get the nice solid color.  For the red thin strip we found that a craft brush worked best.  We ended up doing three coats total.  While the paint was still wet we took a deep breath and pulled the tape off the wall.

It worked!  We were very happy with the results.  There were only a couple of spots that needed some touch up.  The corners bled under the tape – fixing it was simple.  A wedge craft paintbrush worked  perfectly for touch ups.

I am very happy with the end result!  Tomorrow I’ll show you a video that shows the room  in all it’s painted glory!