Boys striped bedroom

Here are the before pictures of this room.  I know it is hard to see but there were so many holes to patch it looked like a bad Venetian plaster job.

First I patched, primed and painted this room.

My son really wanted diagonal stripes.  I wanted a room he could have for a while and not out grow.  This is what we came up with.  When I started this I really had no plan as far as width of stripes and how many stripes.  If I did I would have changed it along the way.  I do my best work with no plan.  

I started by snapping a chalk line then masking it off with tape.  Then measuring up 18 inches and masking another line.  (If I had someone around to help I would have done less measuring and more chalk lines.)

We have this weird wall in this room so I continued the stripes around this room.  This was the trickiest part.  It took three tries to get the angle right.  I just went with what I felt looked right.  My husband asked why I didn't figure it out mathematically.  (How do you do that?)

After that it is just a matter of masking and painting.  I tried a few things to see what would give me the crisp lines I wanted. 

I tried using a putty knife to press on the tape making sure it was sealed well.  That helped a little but the line was definitely fuzzy.

Once I had a line on both sides I could use as a guide, I was able to use my Purdy brush and get a good line without tape.  This saved a lot of time.  I had to go slow but I didn't have to tape.  I love my Purdy brush. 

(The top is blue paint not blue tape)

A great tip for a crisp line is to mix a little caulk with water and spread it over the edge of the tape with your finger.  Let it dry for a minute, then paint.  This creates a great seal.  Just be sure to remove the tape while the paint is still wet. 

 (okay this pic is from a different project, but you get the idea)

This chocolate brown line was done this way.  Super crisp lines but time consuming.

After a lot of touch up the stripes were finished

 This project was very fun but really time consuming.  I think the stripes took me at least 12 hours to do.  I would recommend convincing someone to help you.  I tried to use paint I already had and mix paint together to make the colors I didn't have (I have a lot of leftover cans of paint).  For this project I spent $14 on paint and $7 on tape.  I feel it is a big impact for $21.