For the love of stripes!

I do love a good stripe.  I probably have at least 20 shirts, dresses, tanks that have a stripe on them!  I've always been interested in stripe walls.  I would love a striped wall, but have always been afraid of the work.  Goodness.  I was right to be afraid, but guess what?  I have one!  Here is an pictorial (???) update of what went down in the Bland house today!

Our hallway walls and trim and doors are the "standard" gross yellowish white paint that builders use.      When I painted the main floor of our home gray in August 2012, I brought the color all the way up to the door do our master bath.  Then I stopped.  I new that one day in the future, I'd want stripes in this hallway.  Oh the dream.

Our rooms up here are a mix of colors, so I had to stay neutral here.  Our room is green {Fresh Guacamole} Ashley's room is bright pink {Candy Coated} and the office/one day will be a nursery, if we ever get around to having more kids, is a soft yellow {Buttercup}.  So with that rainbow of colors, I chose to stay with a gray color.

Disclaimer: please ignore our terrible carpet.  It's on the list to be replaced!

First I put two coats of Decorator White on the walls.  You can't really see it well below, it still looks a little yellow.  We have terrible lighting in this hallway!  This is a view of our bedroom door, the linen closes, Ashley's door and the office (the yellow room)...

The view below is from the bathroom towards the office and down the stairs.  Hello, beautiful gallery wall.  I love you.  Next I had to tackle that high wall...

That stairwell wall was NOT fun to paint.  I had to get creative painting that white.  I didn't dare do the stripes on that wall, I think I would have died.  About an hour into this project my body was aching and I felt feverish, and that's when I remembered that I am sick.  Hello?  Who starts a crazy project when they are sick?  Wait, who doesn't remember that they are sick?  Yes, that's me.  It's not a big deal.  Just a virus...you know...where I need to rest and sleep it off -.-

In that picture you can totes tell the different between the gross standard builder color and my pretty white!

After the white paint, two coats {thanks to Ash who I made help me before she could have a friend over!} I started to measure and mark off the stripes.

Our ceilings up here are 8 foot, so I decided to make it nice and easy and do 1 foot per stripe.  The bottom strip would have to be white, since I am incorporating the baseboard in that measurement.  It made it very easy to mark off.  I made a little tic mark at each foot, and then took my level and carpenter ruler to draw super straight lines.

Then, all I had to do was tape it with painters tape!  This part, drawing and taping, was the most tedious.  I took lots of breaks.

After that, I got started painting.  Now, our main floor is a beautiful cool toned gray called Secret Passage {Olympic from Lowes with Primer and all that fancy stuff built in, but low VOC} For these stripes I wanted them a little darker, to stand out, so I used some leftover gray from a different project.  This one is also Olympic paint, called Flagstone.

It looks really dark here, it's still wet.  I loved it immediately!

Here is another shot, plugging away.

I ended up doing two coats of this too.  The first coat I put on was very light,  I didn't want it bleeding through the tape.

Immediately after I finished the second coat, I pulled the tape off.  Be careful when you do this, because paint will inevitably get all over you.  I must have been too manic to notice.  I wanted to see it done!

And now, for the moment we've all been waiting for...the finished product!

Again, so sorry about the lighting, it's so bad.  We have to fix it or add a light somehow.  But isn't it beautiful?!

I can't stand those brass door handles.  Ugh.  I need to match them all to Ashley's {third door down, beautiful nickel ones}

The tape worked great.  The way I painted the stripes, with a light coat and then a second coat, seemed to do well.  No bleeds at all!  As for our banister there, I'm thinking of painting that white and then making it vintage looking by staining over top.

The orangey wood just doesn't do it for me;)  The stripes, however?  I LOVE THEM.

Let's see...so I started working on this around 9:00 am, and I took about a 2 hour break to pick up Ashley's friend, go to Lowes and eat lunch, and then I came back and worked on it until 5:00pm, with a few other breaks for water, bathroom, and ordering dinner {I couldn't cook after all that manual labor!} so I think overall it took me between 6 and 7 hours to do this.  Not too bad, eh?

There are still a few steps I have to tackle before it can be labeled "done".  You know, one thing leads to another.  More projects for another day...I just couldn't handle more than the stripes today.  I wanted immediate results, you know?

I am happy with my stripes.  I can't wait to get it all done!  The to do list?

- Replace light switch
- Take off door handles
- Sand doors and trim
- Clean doors and trim
- Paint doors and trim, 2 coats
- Sand and clean banister
- Paint banister, 2 coats
- Vintage-ize banister
- Finish making shelves
- Hang shelves
- Decorate shelves
- Find and hang artwork outside Ashley's door

Until then, I'll be sitting in my hallway, adoring these!

What do you think?  Don't tell me if you don't like it.  Only tell me if you do;) LOL.

I think my bed is calling my name early tonight.  Will we have school tomorrow?  I need to rest if so!