Stripes

Here is our hallway.

What it looked like when we moved in:

 After wallpaper removal

Carpet removed and wall painted Sherwin Williams Moderate White

So last night, while I had about a zillon things on my to-do list, I decided I wanted to take on a fun project and add some spice to our hallway. I stumbled across the picture below on Pinterest.

(photo from abode love)

As a new home-owner, I don't think I'm ready to do go quite as bold and paint my whole hallway in stripes but I thought that the wall between the master & guest bed room might be a fun accent wall. While Stevens was at a baseball game, I got out some tools, sushi, glass of wine and got to work!

The tools I used were a tape measure, a yard stick, Frog tape, razorblade, a level, and a pen.

I measured the wall to see how thick I should make the stripes.  The above inspiration photo has 5 inch stripes.  The wall measured out to 90 inches from top to bottom so I went with 5 inch stripes.

Taping out these stripes takes a lot of patience, talking to yourself, and having to stop and think about which stripe you are on. The tape goes over the stripe that you are leaving the wall color.

And then the stripe you paint has to be the full 5 inches. 

Because the space I was painting was so small, I would measure out each side then tape and double check with a level.  I also marked each stripe that was I leaving the wall color with a scrap piece of tape - makes it so easy identify which stripes you are painting.  

Finished product! Not sure if this will be permanent or not, took me about an hour and a half to do and the future hubby hasn't seen it yet.  We will see what he thinks!!

Frog tape is amazing!! But will leak if you use oil base paint.  For latex just firmly press around the tape before you paint and remove before the paint dries.  There was very minimal touch-up and the lines are very clean!

Thank you for reading!

Picking Paint

Once the wallpaper was stripped we learned a lot about paint.  I have always loved looking through Pottery Barn and Ballard Designs magazines and we both loved the idea of neutral walls.  We was shocked when we discovered that there are TONS of options when it comes to a "neutral" color.  Warm tones? Cool tones? Hint of blue? Hint of lavender? Brown undertones? Its enough to make your head spin!! We asked for help from a friend who really knows her stuff and decided to go with Sherwin Williams Strip 21.

These are the first three colors down the paint strip

I saw in a magazine where you should be able to take all of the paint chip colors for your house, throw them in a pile, and they should all compliment each other.  So for our master bedroom, we wanted something that would go with the the colors above as well as the master bathroom.  We were thinking a shade of blue but we didn't want it to be too matchy-matchy with the blue bathroom tile.

 Obsessed with this color! Think it will be great with some grey accents.  Comes off as a power blue with green undertones  - reminds me of a Charleston coastal blue!

Buying paint was a whole different story - during our first trip we had to call/text friends or family to help us every time the nice people at Sherwin Williams asked us a question.  We just thought you walked in said I want this color and they mix it up for you, WRONG! We had no clue when it came to matte/flat, eggshell, satin, semigloss, gloss, oil, latex.

This can is all over our house.  We used it for every wall color. We also chose an eggshell finish, which means it has a hint of sheen or gloss to the color, in an acrylic latex.  This is a pretty standard for painting walls.  

We soon realized all the trim needed to be done as well, although it was a creamy color it had a yellow hint to it due to age. However, we had to use oil base paint because the trim was previously painted in oil.  We found out that you can't  use a latex base paint on top of oil or it will peel and flake off very easily. Oil semigloss paint has a very pretty finish making your trim look like it shines! The down side to oil based paint is that it is like painting with molasses.  Its very thick and having paint thinner within reach is a must because once it touches or drips on something - it stays! Oil based paint also sticks to your skin and doesn't wipe off easily.  If it gets on you, wipe immediately or will be stuck - washing it with water does not help, as they say oil & water don't mix!

We also painted the ceilings white with just basic paint from Lowe's - they also had a hint of yellow. Before painting we used a primer and then two coats of everycolor on each of the walls. 

Highly recommend this primer.  Its in the medium range for price and does a great job. Hope this will help you from walking into a paint store and not feeling dumb like we did! Thanks for reading!