Stripes

I got brave with the third and final room in the Summer 2015 Paintstravaganza.  Katherine has been asking for a pink bedroom for quite awhile...and being the good mother that I am I put her off for quite a while too.  But finally, it was time to take her suggestions under consideration and, as with the other rooms, I hit up Pinterest.  Actually her room was the first one I really started to look for ideas for on Pinterest. I found this inspiration picture.

Yes those are stripes, big stripes.  I have never painted stripes before.  But it can't be too hard can it?  Of course, even before I investigated what would be required to paint said stripes I showed the picture to Katherine who fell in love with it.  I was on the hook now.  So I laid out my gameplan:

• Paint the wall the base color
• Paint the other three walls light pink
• Mark the stripes
• Tape the stripes
• Paint the stripes
• Peel tape
• Touch up (how much could there be?)
• Stand back and admire my handywork.

I'd say it took me almost two weeks from beginning to end.  It wasn't hard as much as it was tedious.  First off (after clearing the room and taping of course) we painted the base wall white:

This required two coats of paint and I highly recommend Behr Ultra because we were going from a color to white.  This was done over the course of two weeknights and as soon as we finished I immediately turned to the other three walls and painted them light pink:

If I remember correctly I did this on a Saturday (it's all a blur now).  The next day I started laying out the stripes.  To do this we first took a tape measure and put it along one wall and marked each line.  The wall was exactly 8 feet tall making it easy to do one foot stripes.  After the stripes were marked I took a straight edge and put a line across the wall at each marking making sure to always work from left to right for each line. This ensured the lines were nice and straight and evenly spaced.

After that I marked each stripe that would be painted with a P (for pink!) to be sure I would get mixed up in the taping or painting process.  I knew the pencil would be covered up with the paint.

Then I taped the appropriate lines, making sure the tape were just above or below the pencil line and would be covered by the paint

This whole process didn't take nearly as much time as I thought it would, maybe a few hours for two or three evenings.  After that it was time to paint, which I did in two coats across two evenings.

About 30 minutes after painting the second coat, I pulled the tape.  From a distance it looked incredible but here is what I was seeing up close:

CRAP!  There is no other way to put.  I was beyond disappointed.  All that hard work prepping.  I blamed the tape but soon realized (after some internet research) that I had skipped an important step.  Seems I should have painted each of the tape lines with the base color (white) to "seal" the tape and prevent bleed through.  Whoops!  But how to fix it? I pondered for a bit and then the solution came to me.  I grabbed a wide plastic putty knife and a foam brush.  I pressed the putty knife right up against the line:

Then dabbed with the foam brush using the base coat color.

I had to do this along every line for the ENTIRE wall. Believe it or not it moved rather quickly over the course of two nights. The result?  Boom!  Look at these lines:

I went from being completely disappointed to being absolutely thrilled at the result.  Then it was time to put the room back together:

And with that the Paintstravaganza of Summer 2015 was over! I have since scored a bedding set that is a pretty good match to the inspiration picture.  Next up will be the curtains.  I was lucky to pick up a set of curtain panels that are a fairly close match to the Roman shades in the inspiration picture and I am toying with the idea of turning them into shades.  I am also on the lookout for pink pattern curtains.  But so far I am pleased with the results.  I've shown Katherine pictures and she is excited to see her room later in the week.  I am thrilled that three major projects are behind me and I can move on to the finishing touches!  More to come as I add them!