Stripes taped off and ready to go!
We started out with a room so drab I’m not even going to offer “before” pictures. (Although you can kind of piece it together here & here, even though that’s after the furniture had been redone. You should (no you shouldn’t) see it before I tore into it.) I’d been looking forward to this project for a long time, but it’s been put off for weeks because I couldn’t decide if I wanted one huge around-the-room stripe or a wall of multiple stripes of varying sizes. Since the room is so spacious, I decided to go with a stripe around the whole room to make it feel a little cozier. Good decision, Alicia!
Look! Grey walls can be bright! I wavered for almost two weeks on the perfect shade of grey. Even when I thought I had one picked out, I ended up with 15 different color swatches spread out on the counter at Lowe’s trying to make sure I had the right one. Who even knew there were that many shades of grey? (Billy Joel knew.)
The grey part was easy enough, even with the challenge of taping an entire room and making the lines level and even the whole way around. The hard part came when I had to tape the exterior lines for the yellow paint. Do you know how hard it is to perfectly align a tape line and a previously painted line? So hard, guys. Especially on a textured wall with a few, well, lumps. I’m not sure what the rental history is of this place, but I’m pretty sure someone kicked or punched in a few walls and did the ensuing repairs themselves because there are some serious lumps and one very large bulge in these walls.
But it was worth it! Because look how amazing they look! The Frog Tape I spent extra money on (because they promised to keep lines straight) managed to keep MOST of the yellow paint from bleeding onto the grey, but it didn’t do it as perfectly as they advertise. The added adhesive also pulled up an uncomfortable amount of grey paint when removed. So I took out the fancy paintbrushes I still have from that Design class I took in 2005 and gave the entire stripe a hand-painted seam so it was as perfect as it could possibly be. And it was totally worth the time it took.
Because I took these pictures at 10:30 p.m. when we were finally finished and only had artificial light to guide me, the colors look a little off. I may take more this afternoon when I get home, but you can see the correct shades in the previous pictures where it’s still daylight.
My original plan was to hang some of Marshall’s old band posters on the walls, but I’m actually really into the way it looks without anything on them. I love the clean lines right now, but I may do a test run with some of the posters to see how it feels.
Looks awesome Alicia. Actually kinda love the colour of the green tape too.