Red Rum

I may hate the paint color I picked for the picture shelves.

I broke one of my own cardnial rules...ALWAYS get a paint tester and try out a few shades before making a final selection.

I didn't get a tester, I just made a selection.

I may have messed up.

It may be too red.

I may have to repaint.

My plan is to do a final color check with the boards inside the house later today once everything is completely dry.

I may be painting again tomorrow.

Too Many Pictures: Picture Shelf Project

I knew it was going to be a problem.

I have so many pictures of baby girl that I am a bit overwhelmed.  How do I pick just a few to print and display?  Where do I put them?

As I have posted in the past I am not really good at hanging things on my walls.  I over think.  Now with all of the cute baby pictures I need to get my act together and get displaying.

Have I mentioned how much I like Pinterest?  I have...well I am mentioning it again.

I knew I wanted some sort of wall display that I could easily switch out pictures.  With her growing so much everyday my favorite pictures change quickly.  I also want to be able to change the orientation of the frames from landscape to portrait and back again.  I hate being stuck with a specific direction needed for a specific frame as I don't like to think about what direction I need the picture when I am taking it.  I want to be able to shoot the picture in the direction that I think looks good in the moment.

Bottom line is that I wanted maximum flexibility.

After looking around at a ton of options I was really drawn to picture shelves.  Not only could I rotate the frames and switch out the pictures easily I could even potentially include a couple small decor items to add some additional interest.

Which wall to choose?

I immediately knew I wanted to put the shelf/shelves on one of the walls in the main living room.  After all I wanted everyone to be able to ooh and aah at baby girl (can't hide those away in an obscure hallway).

The wall I picked out is a main wall that is against the stairs.  The problem was that it had a light switch and thermostat on it.  The husband did not think this wall would work.  I begged to differ.

Visualization works well for both of use when we are trying to sell a project plan to one another.

So I took a picture of the blank wall.  Uploaded it to my favorite photo editing site PicMonkey.  Added in some shelves and then did another one where I did a quick mock up of some frames.

It really helped the husband to see how it would work around the light switch and the thermostat.  Doing the mock up also helped me get an idea of how many and what sized frames I wanted.  I highly recommend doing some sort of visualization either by putting paper up on the wall or by photo shop, especially if you are wall art impaired like me.

The plan is to build a simple shelf using a piece of crown molding.

So in the midst of all of the deck shenanigans I will be working on the shelving project.  Wood has been selected...

...I'm off to paint. 

Wood & Cloth - Laundry Room Update - Painted Vertical Stripes

What is black and white and looks amazing....?  The wall in our laundry room!

After the wallpaper debacle I was expecting a complete mess on the painted stripe front.  The husband was completely dreading this part of the remodel as he was certain the stripes would just come out messy and need a ton of touch up. 

Thanks to some helpful tips on Pinterest we were able to complete this entire project in a few hours.  If you are thinking about stripes...do it!


Project Ranking
Difficulty - Medium
Frustration - Low
Makeability - 100% worth it

Materials
Laser level
Paint (We used Valspar Clean White in Satin & Valspar Barn Door Black in Satin)
Good quality blue painters tape
Paint rollers
Paint brush

There are a bunch of tutorials for stripe painting on the web.  All go about things in a slightly different manner.  Most recommend that you try to stick to neutral colors that are similar in shade to each other.  The thought being if the colors are similar little mistakes will not be as noticeable.

So what did Wood & Cloth do...?  We picked colors that are the polar opposite from each other.  That is just how we roll.  We like to live on the edge and throw caution to the wind. 

We are pretty bad ass.


Instructions

Step 1 -  Paint your wall with one of your colors.  Choose your lighter color.  Obviously for us it was the white.

Step 2 - Make sure your initial wall color is completely dry before moving onto any of the stripe work.  If your wall is not completely dry you may have issues when you put down the tape for the stripes.

Step 3 - Figure out the length of your wall and how wide you want your stripes to be.  Our stripes are ~6 inches wide.  We ended up with 18 stripes.  9 of each color.  Mark off your measurements.  We only made marks on the bottom of the wall.  Not on the bottom and the top.  We ended up checking the measurements in the middle and top of the wall as we were applying the tape in an upcoming step.

NOTE:  Don't get too caught up trying to make all of the stripes exactly the same size.  Pick an easy size to measure, a round number works great.  We ended up with the first and last stripe being slightly larger than the other stripes.  The difference is so slight you can't even tell.

Step 4 - Get ready to begin taping.  Before you begin taping make sure that you can devote time to this project from the start of tape to the end of painting.  The key here is to get your tape on and off in a timely manner.  If you don't have enough time and need to break up the painting into 2 sessions...don't!  If you leave the tape on too long you risk pulling paint off when you remove it. 

Our laser level had a pin on the bottom which made it easy to hang on the wall.  Using the measurement marks as guides we placed the laser level close to the baseboard.  Depending on the straightness of your wall you may have to play around with the laser level in order to see the line all of the way up the wall.  Sometimes we had to pull the level away from the wall as much as possible to compensate for some waves in the wall. 

Before we placed the tape we did a quick measurement check in the middle and at the top.  Adjust your level if the spacing is not consistent.

This was probably the hardest part of the project, getting the level straight.  It involved the wife laying on the cold hard tile in order to see the level bubbles and making small adjustments while the husband yelled down instructions like..."clockwise a smidge" "too far" "not far enough" "back" "almost" "counter clock wise a bit" "the other clockwise".

Starting at the top of your wall place the tape along the laser line on the side of the stripe you will NOT be painting.  So for us we always put the tape on the white stripe side, not the side we would be painting black.  In order to help us keep from being confused we actually wrote a "B" on the black stripes.

You want to make sure that the tap along the side of the stripe that you will be painting is pressed down pretty good.  You want a good seal.

NOTE:  The stripes that you will not be painting will look a lot smaller than your to-be-painted stripes.  This is correct.  They are the same size but because the tape for both edges is part of the non-paint stripes it will mess with your head making them look smaller.

Step 5 - This step might be the best DIY trick ever.  It really works!  Using your lighter color paint (the one that is already on the wall) paint over the edge of the tape that borders your to-be-painted stripe.  The point is to seal the tape edge to prevent bleeding of your stripe paint underneath the tape.  This trick really will give you razor sharp lines on your stripes!  We did not use much paint for this step.  You don't want any drips and you don't want it to be too thick as you want it to be able to dry quickly. 

Let the paint dry for about 45 minutes before moving onto the next step.

Step 6 - Break out your darker paint!  This step was intense.  Black paint is intense.  Painting right next to white paint is intense.  I found myself not breathing as I was painting.  Truth be told the majority of the goobers we ended up with in the end had nothing to do with leaks under the tape.  They came from accidentally painting outside the lines. 

Some tips for this section....

***Make sure you are painting the correct stripe!  Double check before you put down your roller or your brush.

***Having 2 people works well and ensures you get the tape off quickly.  We had one person painting the tape side of the stripe with a brush while the other was rolling the stripe. 

***We painted 2 coats back to back.  By the time we finished up all of the stripes the first coat was pretty much dry so we just started right into the second coat. 

Step 7 - Remove your tape.  By the time we finished all of the stripes with a second coat the first ones were already pretty dry so we didn't really wait any additional time to let the paint dry.  You will have to make a judgement call on when to pull the tape off.  You want it pretty dry but not too dry.  Start at the top of your wall and pull.  Be careful not to let the tape hit your wall on the way down as it may still be a bit wet and you don't want it to hit your other stripes and make a mark.

This part was pretty scary.  We had no idea what to expect. 

We could not have asked for a better result.  There are a few touch ups here and there (seriously only about 5) but even with the black/white contrast the tape & paint combo kept the lines perfect.