Before we moved into our new home, I promised my daughter she could pick out the color of her room and I told her that it would be the first room I would paint. After some careful consideration (15 seconds worth) she shouted, “I WANT A PINK ROOM!”

I wasn’t surprised, necessarily, by her chosen color. She’s a very girly girl and she loves all things pink. And while I almost expected her answer, it still filled me with dread the moment the word “pink” came out of her mouth. Whhhhhyyyyyy?! I always swore I’d never paint my kid’s room pink, but I couldn’t go back on my promise so I compromised by stating that I would pick the shade of pink and she agreed. Phew!

Not only did she want a pink room, she wanted pink with white stripes. Naturally. Because the thought of an entirely striped room gave me circus-themed nightmares, I again compromised by agreeing to paint ONE WALL pink with white stripes and all the other walls just pink. She agreed again. Phew!

(Side note: compromise is the key to a happy relationship with a toddler. That’s my parenting advice for the day. You’re welcome.)

So, three weeks after moving in, I finally got around to painting the princess’s room. The pink paint color I chose is Ella Rose by Magnolia Home. It’s a beautiful dusty rose color that I honestly could live with. I bought a sample card from Magnolia and then had it color matched at my local hardware store. Easy peasy. Then I chose one of my favorite white colors, Simply White by Benjamin Moore, for the white stripes. After purchasing a few more supplies, I was ready to get to work.

Painting stripes on a wall can be a bit daunting. It can be hard to get them straight and it’s hard to keep the darker paint from bleeding under the tape onto the lighter paint. In our last house, I managed to perfect a technique that has consistently given me perfect stripes every time. 

How to Paint Perfect Stripes

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What You Need:

• Paint of your choice, one lighter and one darker
• Painter’s tape (I love Frog Tape)
• Paintbrush (this is my favorite brush OF ALL TIME)
• Roller brush
• Paint tray
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Step-ladder

What You’ll Do:

1. First, paint the wall with your lighter color. I used Simply White and I gave the wall two good coats. Let it dry completely, preferably overnight (while this wall dried, I got to work painting the other walls pink).
2. Before you continue, take some measurements. Measure the height of your wall from the top of the baseboard to the top of the wall. Decide how many stripes you want (I always choose an odd number because I like my stripes to start and stop on the same color). Then divide the height of the wall by the number of stripes you want to get how many inches wide your stripes need to be. For example, my wall was 90″ high. I decided to go for 9 stripes because they’d be not too thick and not too thin, and 9 divides nicely with 90 (me and math don’t get along well). So, I needed to make each of my stripes 10″ wide.
3. Once your wall is completely dry (seriously, COMPLETELY dry), using a ruler and a pencil, start measuring your stripes. I started from the top of the baseboard and worked my way up. At 10″, I made a small mark with my pencil and then moved my ruler up to start at that mark and continued to make marks every 10″. Do that across the wall every 6-8″ or so.
4. Next, take your painter’s tape (I prefer Frog Tape over Scotch brand, but the blue stuff is all I had), tear off a really long strip of tape. Starting at the top line of marks, carefully place the edge of your tape just beneath the line of marks so that your tape’s edge will essentially cover up the marks, but the bulk of the tape will be inside the stripe just underneath the first stripe (my first and last stripes are always painted the darker color). So, basically, you want to tape off the white stripe from what will be the pink stripe above it. Continue tearing off long lengths of tape to “connect the dots” of your marks all the way down the wall. 
5. So, the next line of tape you’ll place will be just above your pencil marks (the edge of the tape covering the marks) and the bulk of the tape will be in the white stripe above the pink stripe below. I like to put a small piece of tape inside the light colored stripes so that I know not to paint there and it helps me visualize how my next line of tape should be placed.
6. Here’s trick #1: When you finally have all your tape on the wall, you want to take your light colored paint and a paint brush and brush white paint over all the tape you just placed on the wall. I know it sounds weird, but this helps to “seal” the tape so that the darker paint color won’t bleed underneath the tape. Let it dry to the touch. An hour or two is sufficient.
7. Now it’s time to paint your darker colored stripes! I used a normal sized roller brush to paint the pink stripes, but you can use a small roller or a paint brush if you prefer. Just be careful if you use a big roller like I did, you don’t want to go beyond the line of tape and get pink paint in your white stripe spaces! I painted two coats of paint.
8. Here’s trick #2: After you’re done painting the second coat of paint, immediately start removing your painter’s tape! If you wait until the paint is dry, it is more likely to peel off with the tape. Doing it this way helps to ensure nice, crisp lines. You’re done!

Now you have straight, crisp stripes on your walls! How about that?

It takes a little more effort than simply painting a room one color, but I love having a striped feature wall in a kid’s room. I think it adds a nice dimension to the room and kids seem to really love it!

My daughter was thrilled by how her “pink with white stripes” room turned out. Now mama just has to finish decorating it!

Have you pained stripes on a wall in your home? How did it turn out?

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