Seeing Stripes

I love stripes.  Like seriously, I'm obsessed.  You know it's pretty bad when your students point out that you wear stripes AT LEAST three days a week.  I love middle schoolers.  They notice everything!

I have had room stripe envy for some time now.  I somehow convinved the hubby that striping our hallway was a MUST!  Being the darling that he is, he dropped everything one weekend to help me. I am just the one who comes up with these grand plans.  He is the brains behind the operation.  Since I really had NO idea of where to start, I employed him to help me!

Here are a few awesome pictures of my stripe inspiration...

I first became smitten with stripes after seeing this bathroom from Young House Love.  I love the subtle tone on tone stripes.  I guess you could say it was love at first STRIPE!

These images from Abode Love were my favorite and my main source of inspiration!  Beautiful!

After seeing those photos, I decided the hallway was the room to stripe.   Here's a before shot of the hallway when we moved in...

Yikes!  Just look at that blue carpet and wallpaper.  Not to mention the eyesore of a fireplace in the middle of the dining room.  I don't really have a great shot of the hallway once we painted it gray, so this will have to do...

Step 1: Math Skills Required: Measuring- Measure the full length of your wall and divide that number by twice the number of stripes that you want to have minus one (ex: our wall is 90″ tall and we wanted seven horizontal stripes so we divided 90 by 15 (8 x 2 = 16 – 1 = 15) to get the thickness of each stripe. Ours came out to 6 inches.  You want an odd number of stripes so that the top and bottom are both the same color.
Step 2: Make Your Mark- Use a ruler to mark off every 6minches starting from the floor and working up to the ceiling
Step 3: Tape It Off- Grab some painter’s tape (We used Frog Tape) and connect your pencil markings to create taped off stripes (once the tape is in place rub it a few times so you know that it’s flush with the wall for cleaner lines). The main thing to remember is that the tape should go outside the marks for the stripes you’ll be painting but inside the marks in the negative space that you won’t be painting. Confused?  I know, that's why I had the hubby do it!

Step 4: Roll With It- Grab a good roller, some paint, and start rolling. Apply two even,thin coats of latex paint between the tape that’s further apart to create your stripes.
Step 5: Take it Off!- This is a VERY important step. It’s crucial that you remove every strip of tape as soon as you’re done with your second coat of paint while the paint is still wet.  Waiting to remove the tape until after the paint has fully dried will cause peeling and uneven lines that are less than crisp (which would make you want to cry after all that taping). As soon as your roller is down, start pulling that tape off the wall for a clean stripe that looks seamless and sleek.

There you have it!  Easy horizontal stripes, right?  The hallway has quickly become my favorite space in the house  It makes me so happy whenever I look at it!  Oh, and if you're wondering about our paint colors, our hallway was already Sterling by Behr.  For the stripe I chose Martha Stewart Precious Metals.
What about you, Wayman Family Nesters?  Stripes: love em' or hate em'?  And if you love em', what room in your house have you striped?