Painting nice n neat stripes on your walls

There are cheap and easy ways to paint stripes on your walls by hand and there are more complex and somewhat more expensive ways. I didn't have the patience or will to waste money on 'specialised' tape or lasers, my list of tools was short, sweet, and blissfully available.

All you need is:

  • pencil

  • masking tape

  • measuring tape

  • your desired paint colour for the stripes

  • paint, the exact match to your existing wall colour (you'll see why!)

  • faith in yourself

I painted stripes in my tiny upstairs bathroom. The vertical, light-coloured stripes made the room appear larger and more friendly. 

I started by measuring the distance between stripes with my measuring tape and making marks with my pencil. 

I then used the masking tape to make the stripes. I know this sounds kind of counter intuitive but make sure it's not too sticky as it may pull chunks of your paint out when you remove it. 

Here's the Big Secret to preventing your painted stripes from bleeding or appearing jagged. Go over the inside edges of your masking tape with your wall colour (mine was white) and go just over the tape. This seals the space between the tape and the wall, and if any of that paint goes through you won't notice it as it's the same colour as your wall! 

Paint as many coats of your stripe colour as you need until you have the desired effect, when dry GENTLY pull the masking tape away from the wall and you will have perfect stripes! 

Here I am giving it a bash. That's my painting jersey so don't judge my fashion sense :P