5 Tips for Flawlessly Painted Stripes & Chevron

ECOS 09/15/2015

Painting is the most inexpensive, quickest, and easiest way to transform any space. Even better, it's relatively risk-free since you can change what you’ve done relatively easily if you don’t love the end results. One way to take any room from drab to dramatic is to paint stripes. A bold, thick stripe of color on the wall will instantly give the room a more dynamic, modern feel. And multiple colors can really make a kid’s room pop. Love the idea of stripes and chevron, but worry that you lack the skills to do a professional looking job? The good news is that it isn’t that hard to do! Here are 5 tips for flawlessly painted stripes and chevron, as well as inspiring ideas to get your creative gears going.

A Note on Design. Horizontal stripes make a room appear larger and vertical stripes will make your ceilings look taller, so keep that in mind when you are in the design phase. Here's a pinboard to help you decide what sort of stripes would look best in your space. As you look through it, you'll see there are countless ways to incorporate this design trend into your home.

Follow ECOS Paints' board Painted Stripes and Chevron on Pinterest.
 
  • Assess if you need to prime. As with any painting project, you need to assess if you need to apply a primer before painting. If you're painting over a previously untreated surface, you'll need to prime. Also, if you're painting a light color over a dark one, or need to cover grease/smoke/water stains,  you'll need to prime. If you'll be priming, let the base coat dry overnight before you do your stripes. (Shameless self-promotion: ECOS Paints are self-priming, so you don't need to consider this step at all.)
  • Measure out your stripes. Whether you're doing one big stripe or twenty little ones you need to measure them out so they're straight and level. Use a pencil to put dots on the wall and then use a carpenter’s level to draw the straight lines across the wall. A laser level would be good for this too, but isn’t necessary.
  • Apply tape. Use high-quality painter’s tape because the cheaper tape is going to allow paint to bleed through at the edges and will be harder to take off. Put the tape on the outside edge of the lines you drew. Make sure the tape is level and doesn’t have any creases in it. Press down on the edge of the tape line with a putty knife or your fingers to make sure it is stuck firmly to the wall.
  • Paint the stripes. Paint the stripes with a 9-inch roller or mini roller. Make sure to fill in the stripe completely by painting directly onto the tape and applying two coats of paint. 
  • Peel the tape off. Let the final coat of paint dry for four hours and then peel the tape by pulling it away from the stripe edge. Use a slow, steady motion to prevent the paint pulling away from the wall along with the tape.
That’s it! If you do just a couple stripes, this whole project could be done in a day. Clearly, the more stripes you do, the more time it'll take, but it's worth the extra effort if you want something really bold and dramatic. Taking the stripes design concept a bit further, you might love the chevron look, too. Here’s a great video that shows how to take some of the same steps that we talked about for stripes, but applying them to create a chevron wall.
  Still have questions? Let us know in the comments. We're always happy to help.

CATEGORIES focal wall ideas|painted walls

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