Painting Chevron.

Have you ever had a project that seems like you may have bit off more than you can chew?  For the past month I have been painting chevron stripes down our hallway.  It didn't take a month to paint the stripes down the hall.  What took a month was, buying the paint, gaining motivation to actually paint, not being afraid to paint, etc.  

There was a lot of video "how-to's" for this situation.  Let me share what I've learned with you.  

1. Pick your colors. I picked two to start.  Two isn't what I ended up with, we ended up with three because the two I picked were too similar that you couldn't tell a difference, I got so mad that the next day I threw a thrid complimentary color in there. 

2. After you pick your colors, I suggest watching this video.  This video made all the difference, prior to this I had NO clue what I was doing and using a stencil just seemed like extra work. 

In the video they suggest using 10" spacing, I used 12" because I didn't want it to seem too zig-zaggy, if that's a word.  I suppose you could use many variations on this. 

3. Once you have all your points marked start here comes the taping!  My word of advice would be once you start taping don't stop!  I stopped several times and had trouble every time I came back trying to figure out where I left off and what went to where.  

4. When cutting the tape use a sharp blade.  A dull blade won't cut through the tape and you end up with rough edges.  You can free hand cut like I did, or use a straight edge.  If you're going to use a straight edge, metal is best so you're not cutting through your straight edge.

5. Press the edges of your tape with your finger. Using something other than you finger doesn't work as well because it won't get down into the grooves.   Not doing this you'll run the risk of having your paint get underneath your tape. I  pressed down my tape twice, once when I first put the tape down and again right before I was going to paint that area to ensure that tape wasn't coming up. 

6. START to paint.  I used this blog to help me.  However, I found some of the directions rather confusing.   The most helpful part was to use a foam brush to paint the edges of the tape before rolling over it. 

7. Once you'd gone over your edges, it's time to bust out the roller!  For each section I did two coats of paint.  It would be awful to spend all this time, peal off the tape and find that you missed spots!  

8. Here comes the fun part!  Start to peal.  Once you paint has dried start pealing away the tape.  This is the tricky part, if you wait too long the tape will take the paint with it, if you don't wait long enough some of the paint can seep underneath it.  I waited until the paint was dry to the touch, about 30 mins. 

7. Touch up any areas you may have missed, or gotten out of the lines.  Luckily by using that little sponge brush I didn't have too many area I had to go back over. 

And that's it.  Stand back and see the masterpiece you've created on your wall!