Monday, April 5, 2010

Laundry Room Makeover - How to Paint Stripes

laundry room makeover ideas
The weather here in Utah ruined my plans this last weekend for finishing my garden in the backyard, and getting family pictures taken. I was so disappointed, but was determined not to let the husbands three day Easter weekend go to waste. So I put him and his brother to work in the laundry room for a quick weekend room makeover.

frog tape review
I have been using frog tape lately for various projects of mine that have require me to use paint blocking tape. I have really liked it, and have thought it has lived up to it's claims. I was checking out their website the other week and found this great picture of a striped hallway on their homepage.

frog tape paint idea
I loved it! I have a favorite piece of fabric that is white and gray striped, and I am still waiting to find the perfect project to use it for. So I thought, what would be even better than my favorite fabric? Having a room in my house that makes me feel like I am living in my favorite fabric!

laundry room light idea
I had the husband replace the stock dome light with this black lantern style indoor/outdoor pendant light that I bought off of craigslist for $10.00. I have another one that I will put in the laundry room bathroom as-well. I wish they were a little bigger, but I think they look fun. I have to fix the paint on the ceiling though, because it looks like the previous owners (the bank) just painted around the dome light.

how to paint strips on wall
We then went to work marking off where our paint stripes would be. You want to first decide how big you want your stripes to be and then measure them out on the wall with a tape measure marking your stripes with a pencil mark on the wall about every foot or so. We wanted this project to be quick and easy, so we made sure that we would start and end with a white stripe so that we did not have to do as much cutting (painting against trim-work or ceiling with a brush).

how to tape paint strips on wall
After we were done marking everything we began to tape. When you tape the stripes off make sure you are placing the tape in the correct spot. Depending on what stripe you are painting your tape will either go above or below your marks. Check your tape once placed on the wall to make sure your tape is level. Not all walls are level and that could effect your marks and taping, so make sure to double check everything before painting. After we finished taping we ran the edge of a credit card over all the tape to make sure it was adhered well to the wall, and that there were no bubbles.

how to paint strips on a wall
*opposite of what this picture is showing I would recommend to paint horizontally with the tape to assure you do not pull the tape up while painting*

Next step paint! I used the same color gray that I used on my kitchen table which was San Antonio Gray by Benjamin Moore (mixed in Behr paint from the Home Depot). We used rollers to paint the majority of the taped off sections. Make sure you paint the right section! I was really paranoid about this because I do not have the white paint for this room. So touching up and fixing mistakes was out of the question. Then we used our Purdy brushes to do the cutting in the corners and edges. Purdy brushes are a must for any good paint job, don't waste your money buying cheap brushes. The tricky part here is that you do not want the paint to dry too much because it could affect the tape and the sharpness of your line, but you still will probably need to do two coats of paint. We waited about 10 minutes or so before doing the second coat of paint, and cutting. So if you are doing a big area it would probably be best to work in little sections rather than rolling a first coat on the whole room. It will just leave you scrambling to get all the cutting done in-time for a second coat.

painting strips san antonio gray
Then comes the fun part! peeling off the tape to reveal your freshly painted crisp stripes.

white and gray stripped walls
We removed the tape immediately after painting the second coat. You want to double check that all your tape edges are well painted. Remember you can always touch up the center of the stripes, but the edges where the tape is will be almost impossible to touch up afterwards. This was the biggest project I have used frog tape on and it really pulled through for me. I had almost no touch ups or bleeding to deal with. The little that I did have was quickly removed or fixed with a wet Q-tip since the paint was still fairly wet after removing the tape. It was critical to me that my tape work well, since like I stated before I did not have the white paint used in this room.

laundry room before and after stripped wall ideas
I love my "new" laundry room. It makes me so happy to go in there that I may actually do laundry. I am still trying to decide what color to paint the cabinets in there. White, gray, or blue are the choices. Let me know what you think I should paint them. Now all I have to do is a little accessorizing and I think I will have a pretty spiffy laundry room.

laundry room paint ideas laundry room makeover ideas san antonio gray wall stripes

DIY Day @ ASPTL

26 comments:

  1. So many people are scared to attempt stripes! Good for you! They look fantastic!!!!!

    Stop by my painting blog and say hello sometime!

    Blessings, Jennifer

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  2. That turned out so good! I love it!

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  3. Thanks! It was fun to do and really fast and gratifying.Ryan and I have done tons of painting so we consider ourselves semi-pros. We joke though that when we are done painting this house we will for-sure be pros.

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  4. I love the transformation. What a great after. And seriously - how cute are those lantern lights and for that price!

    A tip when painting stripes, I saw on tv that they said you could put a little bit of caulk on the edge of the tape, side you'll be painting, smooth it out, this seals it, so no paint will go under the tape and then you just paint it like normal and it covers great with the paint.

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  5. Kat: I read that too. With the frog tape you do not need to do that because it has the paint blocking technology built into it. It is pretty spiffy stuff. I highly recommend it. Then you do not have the cost or mess of caulk.

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  6. Darling! Those lines are SO straight..impressive. As for the cabinet color you can never go wrong with white cabinets in my opinion, but then my husband says everything we own (furniture wise)is slowly becoming white. So I may be a bit obsessed with white at the moment. Grey or blue could be fun too.

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  7. wow that looks GREAT!!! I cant wait to see the finished product!!
    ~Tana

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  8. What a wonderful outcome! Thanks for tips on how to do stripes! I would be petrified to try! Be blessed. Cindy

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  9. That turned out fantastic!! I love what it added to your room!! Gray is definitely starting to appeal to my taste and I think this room just looks so cute. Great job!

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  10. LOVE it! I adore stripes... I need to pick a room in my house to do them. I've got a Power of Paint Party on my blog every Wednesday... love for you to link up this project.

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  11. Maryann: Love your blog, I just linked to the party.

    Thanks For Stopping By Everyone!

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  12. I love it! I just painted horizontal stripes in my closet and love it. I wish that I had a bigger laundry room to do something like this, I love how it turned out.

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  13. Visiting from Power of Paint. I love how this turned out. I recently bought some Frog tape but haven't used it yet. The room I want to stripe has a pretty heavy texture (hand troweled) and I'm not sure if it will work alone or if I will have to caulk it too. I love how well is seems to work on smooth walls.

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  14. Sandra: My walls were a little textured, but more from just years of painting not trowel work. You may just have to make sure there are no gaps in your tape by the textured parts. If you can get the tape flat and pressed well I bet you will not need caulking at all. Thanks for visiting!

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  15. Shannon: Just checked out your closet. Great minds must think alike. I skipped painting the laundry room closet for fear of getting that "you are compulsive" look from my husband. lol I seriously am lucky to have a laundry room that big. Maybe I should be grateful and use it more. (fat chance)

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  16. Visiting through Domestically Speaking. I have a friend that did this too but I love the colors you have chosen. I want to see more so I am following.
    Pamela

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  17. I am always fascinated by the striping I see them do on HGTV.. I really like it. You did a great job.

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  18. I like the horizontal stripes. I just did a similar project yesterday in my laundry room with vertical strips in turquoise. It's a fun change.

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  19. Love the stripes. I re-did my laundry room but since I am renting I just painted. Looks really nice. As for the frog tape site's hallway that comes from a really cool blog called "Three Men and a Lady". Her house is amazing! Check it out!

    http://windhula.blogspot.com/

    Barbara

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  20. Lovely! Those grey stripes are spiffy. I'd definitely paint the cabinets white or perhaps a paler shade of grey? Looks great! ::Jill

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  21. Your stripes are delightful! And I love your lanterns!!! I have been looking for some exactly like that. I was hoping you were going to say you just bought them at Home Depot. It all looks fantastic!

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  22. It looks fabulous!! Your laundry room is beautiful! What a joy it will be to work in there now!!
    Hugs
    SueAnn

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  23. Thanks for all the comments on my laundry room! I love reading all of them.

    Barbara: Thanks for letting me know where that hall way picture was from. I will have to email her and let her know I featured her pic.

    Come back for the Giveaway going on April 12th -17th
    Hope to see you there!

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  24. I'm love, LOVE, LOVING your new laundry room. It's FABULOUS!!!
    God's blessings,
    Sarah :D

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  25. The stripes are so fun and Frog Tape is a favorite of mine as well. I'll never go back to blue painters tape again. Nice work!

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