Friday, February 17, 2012

Our Chevron Stripe Reveal and Tutorial

We have Stripes! Finally! I love them SO much! They really make a statement when you walk in our front door. They took a lot of hard work, but it was beyond worth it. Every time I walk by them I smile. 

this is my own little slice of happiness! 


The process was a bit daunting, and there were a few "hiccups" along the way, but now that it's all finished I am thrilled to the gills that we took the time to figure it out, get it done and do it right. 

Fortunately if you are looking to achieve a similar look we've already been through the trial and error part, and hopefully you can learn from our mistakes. If you want some stripes of your own, or just want to know how the heck we did it, read on for the step by step instructions

First, you'll want to gather all of your supplies. I've done my best to provide links for all the products I used in case you aren't familiar with them or don't have access to them locally.

Base Paint Color- Muralo Ultra Semi Gloss Enamel in the basic white
Blue Stripes- Sherwin Williams Rainstorm (SW6230) All Surface Enamel Latex Base in High Gloss - Ultra Deep Base.
Tape- 1-7/8" Green Frog Tape (if you want to use the formula I have worked out you need tape that is 1-7/8" thick for it to work. I am not being compensated by any of these companies, so use whatever brand you like best, but to avoid lots of trial and error and math use tape that is this thick!)
Roller- WHIZZ 4" Roller w/ 1/2" nap
Paint Brush- Purdy 2-Inch Nylon Dale Angle Paint Brush
Chalk Line Reel and Chalk- Stanley 47-681 100 Chalk Line Reel & Chalk Set
Paint Tray- a basic paint tray that you can pick up pretty much anywhere
Ruler & Old Reliable (a #2 Pencil)-
I know, I know I might have gone a little overboard with the ruler and pencil links, but I am a true believer that it is better to be safe than sorry! 
OK! Once you have all of your supplies gathered you will start by painting your base color. We used a basic white semi-gloss which is often used on trim and doors

you will want to let this dry and cure for at least 3 days before you move on.

When your paint is cured it is time to move on and mark your wall for the chalk lines.
This is where it got tricky for us, and all that math and trial and error came into play. If you want to be able to paint over 95% of your pencil marks and have your tape fit conveniently in between them, the dimensions for your horizontal chalk lines will be 2-3/4" apart and your vertical lines will be 5-1/2" apart. I drew lines on my ruler so that I wouldn't have to move it over for every line. 
 


Mark both the top and bottom of the wall as well as the left and right side.

*Something to consider if you want your stripes to have a point that reaches the top of your wall then you can just start marking at 2-3/4". It will look something like this
Or if you want them to look like they were just put there randomly measure down to a random increment and start there, say 1-1/2 or 2" which will look something like this*


we  have points at the top of our wall, but nowhere else. we measured in 1/4" on the right side of the wall when we started to measure, and the stripes stop at a random spot. 
It doesn't matter which way you do it, but looking back I wish I wouldn't have had the points at the top of the wall. It's your choice, if you are very confused about all this then just skip it and move on.

When you have your pencil marks every 2-3/4" on the edges and top and bottom of your wall you will want to make your chalk lines. It doesn't matter where you start, but you will need two people since you have to make it span the length and width of your wall. Your wall should look like this


Next, you want to take your ruler and make the diagonal lines. 
You start on every horizontal line, but you cross over two boxes in the process.


you may need to add in a few 2-3/4" marks in spots where you don't quite reach a 5-1/2" width. 
I needed to do this on the side of my door, it makes it much easier to get the correct angle.


Once you have all of your lines drawn you will tape them off. I put red lines to show you where your pencil lines should be. Using these measurements and tape width makes it very easy to just tape in between the pencil marks and paint over them with your stripe color. 

 your wall should be starting to look like this


when your all finished taping your stripes you'll want to tape around the trim, door or window frames, and the edges of the walls. I don't have a picture of this before we painted, but this one shows what I mean.

When you have all your stripes, trim and edges taped off you can seal the tape, the company says that brushing a little bit of water on the edge will form a seal and you wont have any bleeding, but we decided to play it safe and did another coat of white on top of the tape. After all that work you don't want to be doing touch ups for hours after your supposed to be done.

Roll the paint on everywhere you can fit the whizz roller, and then fill in any spots you couldn't reach with your brush.

Let the white dry for a few hours and then get started on your first coat of your stripe color!
Once again you can do the majority of the work with your whizz and just cut in everywhere else with the brush.


let your first coat dry to the touch, and then add a second coat.

Because we were doing such a dark color on a white wall we needed to do three coats. Again, you want to let the paint dry to the touch in between coats. 

When you are happy with your coverage you can start to peel off the tape. we let ours dry just a little before we started, but this is a matter of personal preference. I think we waited about a half hour to 45 minutes. 
When you do start taking it off peel slowly and peel it at a 90 degree angle. 

as you can see we had one row with a LOT of boo-boo's, this was due partially to me using a razor blade on the wall to cut the tape (I also cut through the white paint. OOPS!) and partially from Mike peeling it off at lightning speed. I can not emphasize how important it is to PEEL THE TAPE SLOWLY! 

If it looks like the stripes are lifting off of the wall just hold them down with the side of your hand/ finger while you peel off the tape. The paint will be somewhat pliable if you peel the tape off before it's completely dry.


When we were finished we just went back in with the white to touch up the peeled spots, and now it looks FAB!


I am really SO happy with the results. I love how the high-gloss blue looks on top of the semi-gloss white. The lines came out so crisp and perfect.

If you have any questions or need help making your own stripes please let me know!

I was dying to spread the Chevron Love, so I linked up this post at: 


If you end up adding some chevron stripes to your home please share them with us. You can email me pictures at: lauren@acommonerscastle.com 

24 comments:

  1. JenniferMathis2/17/12, 7:37 PM

    Looks Awesome Lauren! You're hired- come paint our walls. Love all the hard work you and Mike are putting into your home. I'm sure Livi loves to supervise ;)

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    1. Thanks! The hard work is totally worth it!

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  2. Ohhhh my gosh! Simply adorable!!! Hope you'll link this up at our new linky party! We feature our favorites each week! We're your newest followers and we'd love to have you link up and follow if you'd like!

    http://www.classyclutter.blogspot.com/2012/02/saturday-spotlight-2.html

    Mallory @ Classy Clutter

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    1. Mallory-
      It was so sweet of you to stop by and say Hello! I just linked up on your site, and you have some totally fab projects!
      Thanks!

      Delete
  3. I love the chevron pattern and the color you chose to do it with gives a huge punch to your space...great job!

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    1. Thanks! That's just what we were going for!

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  4. This turned out so nice! You must have so much patience! I'm in the middle of a dresser makeover and I had to use frog tape for a small design, and I got really frazzled, pretty quick! You did an amazing job, and I love the whole little vignette you have laid out in front of the wall.

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  5. Unique, cool entry. Very sharp looking! -- But did I miss why you painted white over the tape and stripe areas before you did the same with the blue?

    I found you via One Project Closer party.

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    1. Thanks! It took us almost 8 hours to mark and tape off the stripes and we didn't want the blue to bleed under the tape. When you use your base color on top of the tape first that is what bleeds, and there are a LOT less touch ups.

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  6. Super Cute! I'd love to have you join my party...it just opened!!! Thanks LOTS! XO, Aimee

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  7. This looks really really good! I am sending this post to a friend of mine that was thinking about doing a chevron pattern in her laundry room. Love the color combination as well. Thanks for the tutorial!

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  8. This is gorgeous! Just what i need on the wall behind my bed!!! Thank you for the tutorial!

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  9. I love this! So bold!!! I cannot wait to not be renting and be able to do this someday soon!!

    I would like to invite you to link up at my first link party going on now. I hope to see you there. http://littlebeckyhomecky.blogspot.com/2012/02/fantabulous-friday-1-random-happenings.html

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  10. Wow! Definitely something to be proud of!

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  11. Gorgeous and what a great tutorial! I'm so jealous of your motivation . . . seems like a lot of work. Sigh . . .

    ;)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! You are so kind. I checked out your blog, and it's fab! This project was a lot of work, but it was SO much fun to do. I would totally do it again in a heartbeat.

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  12. I just found this through the link party and can't believe how fabululous this looks! You've done an amazing job, and I would love to have it in my house but just don't have the patience. Did you want to have a holiday in Queensland, Australia and do this for my entry wall? :)

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    Replies
    1. I would die for a holiday in Queensland, unfortunately it isn't very feasible for us right now. We did our wall a little bit at a time over the course of about 10 days start to finish. When we got sick of working on it we took a break, and didn't rush ourselves. You could totally do it, and probably more quickly than I did since I've taken some of the guess work and planning out.

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  13. I saw this on Addicted2Decorating, and WOW! What a fabulous little accent wall. I am dying to paint but unfortunately we can't in our apartment. This is making my fingers itch to grab a paintbrush.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! I can relate, it is very nice to finally be able to paint any wall I want, any way I want. I am working on something that should work quite well for renters who want to add some POP to their walls too, so be sure to check back for it! :o)

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  14. You are my hero! That looks amazing.... and it looks like it took a lot of patience and dedication to finish it! If only I could just hire you guys! :)
    Thanks for the tutorial!

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  15. This is an amazing transformation! So much patience and work required to tape out all of those lines - smart idea to tape off what you're not painting and then just paint everything...it looks great!

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