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Paint Stripes: Questions and Answers
Q. How do I calculate the stripe width? My walls are 12' and 14' long?
A. You are going about the striping in the wrong way. The best way to stripe is to approach it the same way that you do wallpaper hanging. Start in an inconspicuous corner next to a door way entrance to the room, then work your way around the room eventually meeting up at your starting point. This way you will make your stripes all the same width. You will have a possible mismatch to deal with at the end but that can be engineered out (possibly or at least minimized) as you near the end point. If you calculate your stripe width based on wall length - each wall will have different size stripes. You will have no flexibility using the "centered" method of stripe layout which will lead to stripe fragments next to windows etc... and other problems associated with the inflexibility of the centering layout method.
Q. How can I prevent the paint from bleeding under the tape?
A. Use the correct tape (see Striping article). Rub the edge of the tape down firmly to the wall from top to bottom. Use a foam roller and apply the paint with light pressure. If using a brush - brush away from the edge of the tape rather than toward or into the edge of the tape, i.e. try not to work the paint under the edge of the tape. Helpful hint: Your tape work must be perfect for stripes with a dramatic color differences (such as black and white striping), colors that are closer together will not show slight fuzziness on the tape edge. The more extreme the striping the better your tape and paint technique must be.
Q. Does it matter where I start?
A. Yes. You start where you will eventually end, providing you are striping the whole room. The end point is a potential mismatch, so it must be in an inconspicuous spot.
Q. How can I paint stripes on a textured wall?
A. You cannot tape clean edges on a textured wall so you must do free hand stripes using a roller. Use a roller or rollers of various widths and using a laser level to guide, paint your stripe with the roller from top to bottom of the wall -without tape. This is a more casual form of striping but looks good in the right setting.
Q. How do I prevent ridges on the stripe edge? I don't want to have to do any sanding when it comes time to repaint.
A, The key to repainting without sanding would be to keep the film build to an absolute minimum on the stripes. The thinner you can keep the film build the better your chances of repainting without having to do too much sanding. There are no guarantees here. You might be able to do so without having to sand at all - but test it out off the wall on illustration board to see first before doing the actual painting on the wall.
One way to try to achieve this is to use a foam roller and only do one thin coat of paint. The whole time you are striping the wall you want to be thinking of not putting the paint on too heavily. If you do extreme color differences on your stripe - you will have to do two (or more) coats of paint and you will get a noticeable film build on your stripes.
Another way is to use glaze and paint for your stripes. You can do "ragged" stripes with the thin translucence of a glaze - this will help keep the film build to a minimum and to help prevent a paint ridge at the tape edge too.
Test out your stripes off the wall on some illustration board. Paint it exactly as you will be doing your stripes. Then paint over it with primer and finish paint (preferably flat paint which would minimize the ridging) and see if you can do so without having to sand. With your primer and finish paint that you paint over your stripes, use a 3/4" roller nap which will add a normal amount of roller stipple without actually "texturing" the surface.
If you paint stripes with a heavy coat (s) of paint or with a heavy nap roller you will have to do some sanding- maybe a lot depending on how much film build up there is - that won't be the end of the world - but it is more work.
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