How to Paint Decorative Stripes on a Wall

How to Paint Decorative Stripes on a Wall

[nextpage title="Intro" ] Don't you ever walk into some people's rooms and notice how nicely decorated their wall is? There are many ways to spruce up your living space without splurging a huge amount of money. Here is one of them, painting your own room striped! Try this guide at home with this simple to follow step-by-step tutorial on your stripe painting project. [/nextpage] [nextpage title="Step 1-3" ] Step 1: Tape is your friend Start by placing masking tape around the edges of ceiling, windows, doors, floor trim and other woodwork or trim you are not looking to paint. Recommended masking tape size would be 1" but other sizes also work depending on surface needed to stick on. Step 2: Prepare the walls Use a clean cloth with some water and a bit of washing chemical (dishwashing liquid, dettol, etc) to clean the wall(s) to be painted to remove dust dirt and grime. Ensure you clean off any soap residue with clean water thereafter. Step 3: Plan your job You need to fix the size and direction of stripes you intend to paint. Most people would prefer using vertical stripes (especially in condominiums and HDB flats) as the ceilings are not that high. Vertical stripes will help make the room appear taller and make ceilings appear higher. Conversely, if your unit has a high wall area (especially places with loft) using horizontal stripes can make the space more interesting. As a rule of thumb, do not go beyond 3 different stripes as this will make the place look confusing and busy. Colour choice depends a lot on your existing furnishings and colour scheme on adjacent ceilings and floorings. Stripes offset fabric furnitures very well as it gives the pastel feeling for example. Measure and calculate the total coverage area to determine how many stripes for which there will be room. Map your room's dimension on a paper and simulate the stripes to visualise better. It is high recommended you keep your stripes' dimensions of equal size. [/nextpage] [nextpage title="Step 4 - 6" ] Step 4: Measure You will need some measuring equipment in this step:

1. Measuring Tape
2. Spirit Level
3. Pencil

Mark the top and bottom boundary of each stripe with your pencil lightly. Make a light pencil mark between them along a straight level. Be precise and careful about this process as an mistake or crooked lines will be obvious and difficult to remedy. Get a friend or helper to help you with this. Professional painters and painting services are also available if you want it hassle free. Step 5: Taping again Use masking tape along the pencil line outside the area to be painted to demarcate the paint zone. Ensure that the sides of the tape are flushed with the wall by pressing and smoothening out the tape firmly. Otherwise, you might find jagged lines during the painting process Step 6: Cut In Place a sharp straight edge on top of the masking tape so that the edges of both the straight edge and tape line up. A good straight edge may be a metal ruler or set square. With an angled brush, paint lines against the border of the straight edge. This is to seal the tape onto the wall and create clean margins. [/nextpage] [nextpage title="Step 7-8 End" ] Step 7: Paint You will need to use a paint roller if the stripe is thick, or a brush if thin. Paint colours between the taped-off areas using the W technique. Roll on a W pattern, and then fill it in without lifting the roller. Do this section by section until that area is completed. Step 8: Second coat for the finish Let the paint dry abit (approximately 30 minutes) before applying a second coat. After the stripes have almost dried off (approximately 50 minutes in hot and dry conditions and 1.5 hours in cooler and wet conditions) remove the tape. If you wait until it is fully dry, you could end up peeling off paint with the tape so avoid that. And there you go! Striped walls for your pleasure. [/nextpage]