If you are looking to spice up a room there is no better way than to paint some horizontal or vertical stripes on your walls.  You can stripe every wall in a room or choose just one wall to highlight with stripes.

If you have tackled a few painting projects before than painting strips on your walls shouldn’t be too much of a challenge.  Just follow the steps outlined below and you will be on your way to adding color and uniqueness to your rooms.

Step 1:  Decide what types of strips you want to paint on your walls.

You can do vertical striping or horizontal striping depending on the look and style you are trying to achieve.  Horizontal stripes around an entire room can make a smaller room feel larger, while vertical stripes on an accent wall can provide a focal point in your room.  Both require about the same amount of work.

Step 2:  Gathering the necessary supplies.

To paint stripes on your wall all you need is the following tools and supplies:

High quality painters tape, small paint roller, ladder, measuring tape, pencil, and of course paint.

It is always best to use the same type of paint that is on the base of your walls.  If you are using flat paint use flat stripes, if you are using eggshell than use the same on your stripes.  You want your stripe to be subtle and not over power the rest of the room design.

Step 3:  Measuring and laying out the stripes.

First measure the length of the wall you will be striping.  For vertical stripes it is important to space them appropriately so they don’t look too narrow or too wide.  18 inch vertical stripes typically provide the best balance in most standard sized rooms.  So when figuring out your stripes try to get them as close to 18 inches as possible.

Take the overall length of the room in inches.  For a 15 foot long wall, you have 180 inches of wall space.  Divide the 180 by 18 inches and you will end up with an even 10 stripes for that wall.  You can adjust the size of your stripes to suit your personal preference.

Next you want to start at the base of the wall and make a small pencil mark every 18 inches.  Move up the wall a quarter of the way and do the same thing.  You should do this until you have at least 4 marks running up and down the wall.  These marks will help guide you when laying out your painters tape.

Using a small piece of painters tape, place the tape on every other stripe so you know which ones NOT to paint over.  This will also tell you where to lay your tape.

Step 4:  Taping the stripes and getting ready to paint.

Now that you have all of your spacing and marks in place it is time to layout the tape.  If you have a second person to help with this step you will be much better off, but it is not necessary.  Go to the first vertical row of marks.  At the top of the wall start placing your tape and only stick a small portion against the wall at this point.  With help from another person, undo enough tape to reach the floor.  Hold the tape at the top and gently place it against the wall using your pencil marks to line it up properly.

Once you have the tape gently in place you need to make sure it is then firmly pressed against the wall.  Using a hard flat plastic object to help seal the edges is best.  If you do not firmly press the tape against the wall your paint will leak and your lines will end up looking sloppy.  Complete this for all of your stripes.

Step 5:  Painting your stripes.

Painting your stripes is the easy part.  Using a small roller carefully add paint to every other stripe.  Be extra careful while applying paint to the edges of your stripes where the tape is.  Don’t over saturate the tape or you could end up with runs.

Step 6:  Removing the tape and admiring your work.

It is important that you remove the painters tape prior to the paint actually drying.  Once the paint dries it will be next to impossible to remove the tape without peeling some of the paint from your stripes.  This will cause major problems so be sure not to wait too long.  Depending on the size of the project you may need to remove tape from stripes that have been completed prior to finishing the rest of the wall.

Once you remove all of the tape and cleanup you can stand back and admire your work.  If you have any questions about painting stripes on your walls please post them below.  We will get back to you ASAP!