Painting the Bedroom

The First Color

Amanda and I wanted to do something a little funky with our bedroom; we had been living in the boredom of white walled apartments for far too long. After some deliberation, we settled on a two tone brown stripe theme for the room. After plenty of adventures in picking the colors (including leaving the chosen color samples behind at a far-away store and not remembering any of the color names) we finally chose out a fairly high contrast, but warm set of browns. With smiles on our faces, we had a little knowledge of just how challenging it is to paint stripes on your walls.

The basic plan was to save some paint and avoid any bleed over effects and paint the stripes individually rather than painting the room a light color and stacking the dark stripes on top of that. Amanda took on the lion's share of the work by taping things out. Little did we know that taping the walls would be such a challenge! We have a little laser level and that really helped, but it wouldn't stick in our walls because they are plaster rather than drywall and a little harder to pierce with the holder spike things. In hindsight, it might have been a bit easier if it was a two person job - one person holding the level and the other applying the tape, but I suppose learning how to do things is pretty much what we are going to be experiencing for the first few years of home ownership.

After the tape was on the walls and firmly pressed against the wall to give a good seal, we started rolling the paint on. It was a bit tricky with the layout of the room and we alternated between a big roller and a smaller roller to get the job done. The good news was that we liked the color once it was on the walls. The bad news was the color was very unforgiving on any white surface. Any sloppy paint work just didn't wipe off the white ceiling or the baseboard. We decided it was time to be cautious and tape out the ceiling/floor edges as well.

	The First Color Rollover thumbs to change the picture Click Photos for Super Size

The Second Color

With the first color on the walls and edged in, we are 1/2 way done (hopefully!). Amanda had the wise idea to leave the old tape on and use it as a guide rather than the #$&^@#%)^@ laser level (yes, that is a direct quote ;) ) and I think that is saving us some time on round 2 of the taping. I also think I will wisen up and participate a bit more in the taping process.

For the second color we also were a bit more aggressive about getting a good seal between the tape and the wall since we wanted very clear lines for the final interaction. We noticed after we peeled the tape off from the first color that there were some jagged lines where the paint bled through and we really wanted to be sure and avoid that. So I took an old credit card and used the edge of it to smooth the tape on to the wall really well and I think that ended up making a noticable difference. It was really neat to see the second coat go on the wall as it really started to demonstrate how the walls would look once we got everything finished up.

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The Finished Product

Even though it was a LOT of work, we are really happy with how it turned out. It makes the room look spectacular and despite our inexperience, the project turned out just fine without any major problems. From a distance, all the lines look perfectly straight without any bleed over. I personally think that the horizontal lines really work well with all the odd angles in the room and bring a lot of character too the room. I also dont' think that the dark colors made the room cave-like, something we really had worried about. Perhaps its the stripes that keep it from looking so dark and dismal.

	The Finished Product Rollover thumbs to change the picture Click Photos for Super Size