Murals by Missy - The Blog

Painting Stripes in Two Days

Recently, I had the opportunity to do something a little different from my usual repertoire of pictorial murals. A client in South Riding was interested in having stripes painted in her daughter’s room to match her new bedroom set from Pottery Barn. During our consultation, she asked for pink walls with a horizontal brown stripe along the middle of the wall, edged in green. We poured over paint chips and the client selected the perfect colors for the effect she wanted. Here’s how I did it, from start to finish!

Step 1: Clean Up/Set Up
The first step is not very exciting. Since this home is a new construction, the existing paint was still fresh and the walls were clean. I started by wiping down the walls with a damp cloth, laying my dropcloths down to protect the carpet and furniture, and removing the faceplates from the switches and outlets in the room.

Step 2: Taping
The taping step is always tedious for me, since I love the painting part and just want to get to it! But it’s very important to do this step right, or the finished product will look sloppy and unprofessional. I taped up the baseboards. Then, using a laser level, I measured out the lines for my brown stripe and taped them very carefully. The white area left behind my tape would later act as a guide for my green stripes.

It’s very important to burnish your tape when doing stripes! This means that you take a tool, in my case I use a paint mixing stick, and just run it gently but firmly along the edge of the tape to get a good seal and prevent bleeding underneath the tape.

Also, I use Frog Tape, which leaves a very clean edge without damaging the paint or wall beneath it. You can find Frog Tape at any paint store—though I haven’t been able to find it at Home Depot.

Step3: Painting!
As a rule of thumb, I paint from top to bottom using a roller. I like to do as much as I can with a roller first, and then do the edging around doors, windows, and trim with a smaller brush. In this case, I worked on one half of the room at a time because I had to move the furniture around a little in between.

First I did the pink, and then I did the brown stripe in the middle. When masking with tape, I make sure to always apply the paint perpendicular to the tape’s edge to ensure a clean, crisp line. Also, I’m not afraid to put plenty of paint on my brush for good coverage.

As soon as I finished, I pulled the tape off at an angle to reveal a nice, crisp, white line underneath. It’s important to pull the tape off as soon as possible, or the tape could pull the dried paint off of the wall.

Then, I reinstalled all of the plates for the switches and outlets.

At this point, Day One is finished!

Step 4: Wait.
I listed waiting as a step because it’s very important! To avoid damaging the new paint job (and underlying wallboard) I waited a few days to move on to the next step. 48 hours is the recommended drying time in between steps, but I began on a Tuesday and came back the following Saturday.

Step 5: Painting more Stripes
Saturday, I arrived bright and early and began masking up the areas for the green stripes with my trusty Frog Tape using the white stripes left behind after Tuesday’s painting job as a guide.

The taping and painting for this part of the project only took about 2 hours, and when I pulled the tape off to reveal the finished wall, it was incredibly satisfying!

Step 6: Touch-Up
As I pull off the tape, I pay close attention to any areas that need touch-up, and mark those areas with a small piece of tape.

The final step of this job was to go around and carefully fix any imperfections to ensure a professional, clean-looking job. After the painting is completed, it’s important to wait a couple of days before hanging any pictures to be sure that the paint is cured, but it should be dry to the touch in just a few hours.

You can see pictures of the finished room in my mural gallery here:
http://muralsbymissy.com/pink1.html