House Project: Herringbone Wall Paint

   Our bedroom has been pretty goofy since we moved in. We have a nice bed and frame, but had been using a bar stool as a side table and had a terrible red accent wall. After some internet inspiration, the project was on! We read several how-to's on painting a chevron, or herringbone pattern, and we were off. 

1. The first step was to sketch the wall and lay out the pattern. I measured the wall and window and sketched it all out on paper. 

Early drawing

2. We weren't sure what size we wanted the pattern, so I taped out a couple ideas on the wall. We also ended up using a different angle, as you can see at the end. 

The before

3.  Once we'd decided on the size of the pattern, I sketched it in SketchUp

SketchUp model

   I didn't want to have to do anything twice, so I drew everything up including the tape. This way, it  was pretty well planned out before we started drawing. 

4. We decided to paint the whole room and adjacent bathroom with the base color, a light gray. That took a couple extra days, but turned out good. We were also able to cover the terrible red wall (after several coats). You can see that we taped around the base board with 12 inches of butcher paper. This was great because it caught a couple errant drips that got away painting. 

Gray

5.  I used this green tape called Frog Tape, which was a great improvement on the blue painters tape. I will only use this in the future! The window was def the hardest part of the taping, and took the longest to be sure it lined up with the rest of the pattern. 

6.  Here's the whole wall taped. I also used a technique that I read about on another blog: Once we had everything taped of, we painted over the accent (white) areas with the base color. This way if the paint bled under the tape at all, it would be all gray. I also had to hand trim the tape in the areas where it needed to have a sharp edge. I did that with a breakaway knife and was careful not to cut too deep into the wall. 

7. Once the base layer was dry, we went over it with the white accent color. We used a little 6" roller for this, which made quick work of the accent areas.

Natalie hard at work!

8. And here it is all dry. We let it dry for a few hours before pulling the tape off. The green dots are some small pieces of tape so I'd remember where to paint and where not to paint. 

Almost done

9. I don't have any pictures of us pulling off the tape, but we did a few things to make it easier: pulled it off at a 90 degree angle, and pulled it off kind of slowly. Only in a couple of places did it pull up the base layer, which we touched up with a brush. 

The after!

And this is the final product! With some new white side tables and gray lamps and bed cover it looks pretty nice!

Max enjoying the new look.