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stripes

Stripes: Bathroom Reveal

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On Tuesday,  I told you I started striping the bathroom. Well, I think I have a problem. Now that I am finished, and it is functional again, I am already thinking of other places I can paint stripes. So far… it is everywhere. I know I cannot/should not do that, but the technique was so easy and it created such an awesome effect. Let’s get to the pictures shall we?

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

 

I also repainted the trim in Behr’s ultra white in semi-gloss since the previous paint job wasn’t so good. Now everything looks crisp and clean.

 

As I said on Monday, I used these directions for measuring and painting from Skinny Boppy’s tutorial which can be found here. She took a lot of the guesswork out of painting the stripes.

I first, patched up any holes left behind from the water damage we had. Then I sanded any uneven parts, and painted the entire bathroom a base coat of Behr’s Barnished Clay in satin (I typically love flat paint with glossy trim, but in the bathroom is just makes sense to use satin). I actually did two coats of this color to help fully cover the peachy tan that was in the bathroom before.

 

Once I was sure that was dry, I began measuring. When you paint stripes, you want to keep cutting in again at a minimum. Therefore your bottom stripe and top stripe should be your base coat color. In order to make sure this happens, I measured from where the top of the wall meets the ceiling to the top of the baseboards. Then, I took that measurement and divided by an ODD number. Most people when painting stripes divide by seven, but that is typically for a larger room. This bathroom is so small that stripes that wide I thought would be a bit much, so I divided by nine. For example: 83″/9 = 9.222222 inches. That is not an even number of inches, but I started from the top of wall and measured 9″ from the ceiling and using a laser level I began taping. Then I repeated the process for each stripe measuring 9″ from the previous stripe. This causes the bottom stripe to be a little larger than the other, but it is barely noticeable with the toilet, vanity, shower,  and door in the way. When taping I also made sure that I noted which stripes would be the base color and which stripes would be the darker color. This helped me determine in which side of the level line I would put the tape. You always put the tape on the BASE COAT side of the stripe. Also, I put tiny pieces of tape on the base color stripes to remind me not to paint there.

 

After everything was all taped up, I cut in around windows, doors, shower, and corners, and then rolled on on the stripes with Behr’s Perfect Taupe also in satin. Finally, I carefully peeled the painter’s tape right away (while the paint is still a little wet) to get a perfectly clean line.

 

TA DA! I love it! Now to convince Brian we need stripes in the family room.

 

P.S. Today, I am Linking up at Serenity Now for Weekend Bloggy Reading! Check out all the awesome recipes and projects. It is a Pinner’s paradise.



 

Not as Hard as I Thought: Painting Stripes

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Over the summer, we noticed that some of the paint around the shower in our downstairs bathroom was starting to peel and bubble off the wall like this:

 

 

After talking to some bathroom experts, they advised us to re-caulk everything in the shower to prevent water seeping onto the drywall. We hired a professional to come and make sure that every corner of the shower was water tight. After a few weeks of making sure there were no more leaks, I decided to re-paint the bathroom.

This room was left pretty much untouched out of necessity. It was the only working bathroom in the house when we moved in, as the upstairs bathroom was getting a few facelift type upgrades (you can check that out here). Now that I have the time to paint (sort of) and we have another bathroom we can use while I work on this one, I thought I would patch up that nasty drywall and give it a fresh coat of something new.

 

The room is so so small, however it gets a great deal of sunlight from the window, so I wanted to do something light and soft. I also wanted to take into consideration the fact that Brian and I have been mulling around painting the nearby family room in the next few months and we like rooms to kind of flow. After seeing these beautiful pictures from my favorite blog Young House Love (I actually got to meet these creative geniuses in November, you can check that out here), I thought I would try some horizontal striping in our small bathroom too.

Brian and I made the trip to Home Depot and picked out the two perfect shades of soft gray. The base color for the room is Behr’s Barnished Clay in satin and the darker stripe is Behr’s Perfect Taupe also in satin. The paint expert at Home Depot said the satin finish is perfect for bathrooms for easy clean-up.

This is what it is looking like so far:

 

Brian and I think it has turned out better than we could have imagined. This technique is pretty easy and I used time saving tips for lazy people on striping from this Skinny Boppy for help (anything that caters to lazy people is up my alley). We are already thinking of other places to incorporate this easy technique. I still have to do the other walls, and as you can see I still have paint supplies all over the bathroom, but I couldn’t wait to share the progress. Hopefully, I can have a finished room to show at the end of the week. In the meantime it is time to put the paint clothes back on and finish up the stripes.