As someone who has painted stripes multiple times, here is the secret to making a perfect stripe, even on a textured wall:
1. Measure your stripes carefully: I start by measuring the total wall and then dividing by the number of stripes I want.
2. Start taping: This can be tricky, I do one layer at a time, start from the baseboard up and measure. Place the tape under your measurement line. Next time you measure, you will place the tape on the top side of your measurement line. This is where it gets tricky, every other stripe you will have to measure from inside the tape to inside the tape, then from outside the tape to outside the tape. Only tape one at a time then measure the next before applying just in case I make a mistake. I also like to leave the wall color as the bottom and top stripe so I don’t have to re do the paint lines near the ceiling or the base boards.
3. Card your tape: I take a credit card and scrape it over each tape layer carefully to make sure there are no leaks.
4. Base paint: Take the existing wall color and thinly paint a layer of paint on the tape line inside the stripe. This will make sure that if there is any leakage of paint, it will be the existing wall color so you will not be able to see it.
5. 1st coat of paint: Paint all of your stripes with their first coat and let them dry thoroughly.
6. 2nd coat of paint and tape removal: Start by painting the bottom or top stripe, then paint the next. Before you paint anymore, remove the tape on the first stripe, it is very important that the tape is removed before the paint is completely dry, this ensures no paint is pulled off with the tape. As you paint each stripe and before you paint the next, remove the tape on the stripe you had painted before.
Both of these examples were don’t on textured walls. The above picture of the metallic paint, I would recommend doing 3 coats as metallic’s are harder to give an even look. The white stripes only needed two coats but both these rooms were given flawless stripes in less than 2 hours!
