Bedroom Makeover - Painting Horizontal Stripes

We just switched our boys room with our guest room so our boys could have more space. Before we moved all of the furniture in we decided it was time to PAINT!

BEFORE:

We went a little crazy at the paint store and bought some exotic colors. Actually, my hubby had nothing to do with the color choices, he left me alone at the paint counter. . . All alone.

We walked out of the store with:

Lime Green, Overall Blue, and Cocoa Brown.

AFTER: 

We had planned on painting horizontal stripes in the boy's new room but neither of us had done it before. So we combined our knowledge and man power and attacked the walls at full force.  It took us ALL day, sun-up to sun-down, but we love it so much! And the boys think it's super cool.

Here's how we painted the horizontal stripes:

We started by marking the general area of the blue stripes and haphazardly painting 3 coats of blue.

Once the blue was dry we used 2 inch Scotch-Blue Painters Tape to mask off 2 straight lines around the room. It took me 3 tries to get the lines absolutely straight. My advice: don't use a laser level, measure down from the ceiling or up from the floor. Use a yardstick to mark straight lines with a pencil and then tape.

Next, we painted over the blue painters tape with one more coat of blue paint. This is to ensure that the tape seals to the wall and that any leaks underneath the tape will be blue, so they will match the stripe.

Once the blue was dry, we painted the top and bottom areas of the wall green. It took 2-3 coats of quality paint to get really good coverage.

Finally, we painted the chocolate brown stripe in the middle. Make sure you keep on eye on your tape lines so you don't paint into the green areas.

After about 20 minutes, you can GENTLY peel off the painter's tape. 

We made the mistake of putting the tape on before the blue paint was completely dry. When we started to peel up the tape, blue paint bits started to come up too. 

If you have some areas that need to be touched up, use a straight edge, like a putty knife and a small paintbrush to fix any spots that may have smudged, leaked, or peeled. 

Painting stripes takes much more time that painting one solid color but it is definitely worth the extra effort.