Nursery Wall Stripes DIY

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while! If you follow along on Instagram [MiriamCoronaEvents], I posted a couple of pictures of this nursery project. It’s been one of my favorites so far.

Our baby’s nursery [currently in progress] has 2 small closets. We turned one of them into an exposed closet to give the room a little interest and add a focal point. The room is pretty small and doesn’t have any built in’s or bookshelves. I also don’t plan on putting in a changing table. To maximize the space in the room, I thought it would be nice to create a wardrobe changing area. We took down the mirrored doors and tracks and it instantly changed the look of the room.

After sampling a ton of greys, we painted the entire room Burnished Clay [see paint colors below], and added classic wall stripes to the exposed closet space. It was a close tie between painting chevron stripes and classic stripes, but I thought it would be easier to paint classic wall stripes and bring in chevron patterns with textiles instead.

I did the classic wall stripes the easy/lazy way [hey, I'm 32 weeks preggo so don't judge]…they are slightly imperfect, but you’d never know unless I told you I measured the closets height and I picked a random number… I decided I wanted 12 inch stripes. The last stripe at the bottom is more than 12 inches tall, but I had planned on putting in a small white storage bench so I was okay with that! I’m sure we could have had perfect stripes, had I taken better measurements. We ended up with 4 white stripes and 3 gray stripes, but we could have had 4 stripes in each color to make it perfect.

So here’s what you’ll need for this project:

• Painter’s Tape – I have a special technique for painting so that the paint doesn’t smudge underneath the painter’s tape. So regardless of what painter’s tape I use, I always use a small paint brush to lightly edge along the tape rather than painting over the tape with a roller which will soak the tape. I do prefer the regular blue painter’s tape [any brand will do].

• 2 Paint Colors – We went with Ultra White, flat, by Valspar [best matches our ceiling] & Burnished Clay, flat, by Behr and we asked them to darken it 50%.

• Pencil & Eraser – To lightly mark a guide for taping.

• Ruler or Measuring Tape – Depending on how tall you want the stripes, you can use a  ruler or measuring tape. We found it easier to measure the stripes from the ceiling to the floor with the measuring tape, but the ruler also came in handy.

• Paint Brush & Mini Roller – Depending on how big the space is you may need a big roller otherwise the mini roller will do just fine.

• Be sure to enlist an assistant My sister happened to visit that day so she took over while I kept her company

And, here’s a guideline of what you’ll do:

• Paint the wall the lightest color first. It’s better to paint the lighter color first and add the dark color onto the light color.

• Measure and mark lightly [with pencil] where you will tape the wall stripes. This part is hard to explain, so I created a reference chart as it can get a little confusing when you are taping…In order to get 12 inch stripes, you’ll have to figure out how to set up 12 inch lines. So the lines have to be set up so that you paint below the bottom edge of the tape and above the top edge of the tape. Make sense? Probably not so see my little reference chart. I’m a very visual person so I had to create this chart and refer back to it the whole time.

• Pencil marks along top and bottom edge of tape:

• Decide which color you’ll want to paint in the stripes and alternate. Paint the first coat, sit and wait till it dries and then apply another. We did 2 coats of Burnished Clay [and it has primer mixed in].

• Grab lunch…come back and do your final touch ups. So if you missed any spots, make sure you touch them up before removing the tape. Also be sure to touch up any pencil marks from your taping and measuring guide.

Photo Credit: Miriam Corona Events