Painted Stripes On Foyer Walls

See how painted stripes updated a foyer where dated wall paper used to be hung.  Also, how using white paint for under the chair rail, can brighten up the entry experience.  Amy at The Blissful Bee has done a nice job with her new space.

Submitted By The Blissful Bee

You might also like these from her:  Laundry Room Updated, Office Makeover, No-Sew Window Valance

Hey guys, my name is Amy and I’m stopping by today from The Blissful Bee. I am blessed enough to be a wife, a daughter, a sister and an aunt. I am a Graphic Designer by trade, but share many interests in interior design, DIY projects, photography and much much more. If it involves design, I’m there! My mind never rests from new ideas, but thankfully the hubby and I are pretty thrifty and work around a slim budget with a little bit of hard work and elbow grease!

For many months, I struggled with what to do in our entryway. When we moved into our home back in September, there was wallpaper on the walls. I didn’t really mind it, but something just didn’t feel right about the space. It just didn’t feel like mine yet. I was looking for something that gave me that warm, fuzzy feeling when I walked through the door, and that definitely was not happening. That’s when I knew I had to do something about it! Soon after my epiphany, I began the transformation.

Stripes stripes and more stripes! I just can’t get enough of them right now. So what did I do? I put them right in our entryway.

When we moved into the home a nearly 8 months ago, there had been wallpaper up on the wall that I thought I wouldn’t want to take down. Here is how it looked before we moved in:

Normally I love black walls, but in this case I wasn’t sure it worked with the furniture we had. I first painted the bottom half of the wall white (under the chair railing). Since the black paint had a pretty high sheen, it literally took about 4-5 coats of white to completely cover the black. In my opinion, it was totally worth every coat. It already brightened up the space so much. Here is how it looked about a week after we moved in:

After a few weeks of an unfinished entry way, I still wasn’t sure what to do about the wallpaper. I had so many other projects going on at the time, I honestly didn’t have much time to even worry about it. The entryway stayed like this for a while until one day my impulses jumped in.

I had just come back from a jog around the neighborhood and was simply going to shower and start cooking dinner. Well I got a bit distracted when I walked by the entryway and noticed a small corner of the wallpaper had started to peel up. It bothered me that it was already peeling, so I thought this had to be a sign. I tested the strip that was peeling and I seriously peeled off the ENTIRE panel all in one try! One of the main reasons why I hadn’t done this months before was because I didn’t think I had time to peel off the paper inch by inch, but this time I got lucky. Well kinda… There were TWO layers of wallpaper. Luckily the second layer also came off rather easily, but remember folks, this is very rare. In past experiences I knew it was typical for a project like this to take hours and even days.

Here is the progress picture:

Lets just say when the hubby got home from work, he jokingly gave me the “are you kidding me?” look. I told him not to worry because I had a plan! Painted stripes! The next night I began to paint over the new walls. Normally most people would texture over this type of wall because it’s not meant to be painted on. It kind of felt like a hard clay surface and really absorbed the paint. I actually loved the way it worked with the paint, so I kept painting. I will say, it wasn’t the easiest surface to work on, but I was very happy with the end product and the smooth texture it produced.

I also got rid of those small twin shelves and moved them to another room. Found a nice vintage cigarette cart at a local antique store to replace it with. I was SO excited when I found this piece. I had been eying it at the antique mall for months and it eventually went on sale, so I snatched it right up! I again got the “are you kidding me?” look when I bought it, but once I re-stained it and fixed it up a bit, the hubby loved it too:) I think the casters and those old advertising stickers are my favorite part.

I also got those great rustic baskets thrown into the deal as well.

So what do you think!? Are you loving the painted stripes as much as I am? Some people might be nervous to paint horizontal stripes in their home because of the difficulty level of keeping the painted stripes perfectly even. It was actually pretty easy – you just need to measure twice before you paint. I used standard painters tape and it seemed to work really well. If you have any questions on how to paint these stripes, I will be happy to help!