Striping it up....Not to be confused with Stripping...

First off I would like to say I wonder how many people will be disappointed when they are directed to my blog after spelling stripping wrong...hmm...anyways... So we have this awkward wall/hallway/place for doors at the front of our house. I've tried a hundred different things to try to add some excitement to it but nothing really worked for us...

(sorry this is the only before picture I could find, and it's kind of awful...also it doesn't show the whole space...oh well, what can you do?)

Basically this wall houses the door to the guest bathroom, the office (not shown), and the "man cave."

The table and mirror were the longest lasting contenders, and while the table served a good purpose being a place to throw your keys and sunglasses, it was way too big for that spot. Between, the hubby, I, and our pups, someone ran into this table almost everyday and it blocked a quarter of the doorway to the left, which is annoying. Basically I needed something that would make a lot of impact in the small space, without taking up any physical space. I had a few ideas (including stenciling) but since the hubby reserves full veto power (which he rarely uses) I had to find another idea, when he said he wasn't into it. Enter stripes...

If you follow me on Pinterest, you know that I am obsessed with stripes...I love that they are timeless and classic. While, I know this is not a new idea, it's something I've always wanted in my home. I think they add a lot of fun to a space. I've always been a little scared to take the plunge (which is so stupid, because it was one of the easiest projects I've ever done), until I was inspired by my good buddy Jessica's new home and it's newly painted striped hallway. Thanks for the inspiration Jessica!

Side note: If she's okay with it, when she's done styling her new house we might have to share some pictures with you guys. She has great style, and I know it's going to be gorgeous!

I wanted something a little different than Jessica's stripes, since she literally lives a block over, and we have all the same friends, so I did something a little different, with different sized and different colored stripes. After a couple of hours of measuring with an old fashioned, foot long level (no laser level here) and taping off the stripes came the easy part, painting. I'm not going to give you the play by play because there are literally thousands of tutorials online...but I will give you some step-by-step pictures (probably a few too many, bad quality ones) and some pretty good tips that I learned along the way.

I asked Race to take some pictures of me actually painting, but ended up with about 10 pictures with  close-ups of my behind and a few pictures in which you could see my no-make up, with-glasses-on face that I'm not excited about sharing with the world :). Here's the only one that's not completely terrible...

And the after...

And yes I do have metallic gold stripes on my wall now...so what?...

And some tips...

1. FROG TAPE!!! This stuff isn't cheap, about $6 for a small roll, but it's completely worth it!

2. After you are done taping off your stripes, use a plastic putty knife (or if it's 2 a.m. and you don't want to go out to the garage a credit card works too :)) to make sure the tape is really on.

3. After applying your tape, paint over the end of the tape with the base color, that way any bleeding through the tape will be the color that's already there. (Look to the 3rd and 4th picture)

4. Don't wait for the paint to dry to pull the tape off, you will take some of the new paint with you. I basically did one coat right after another, and then as soon as I was done I started pulling off the tape.

How about you all? Any striping on your walls? Linking up at..