poshed up: Office progress...

I know I promised some Operation Organization posts and I feel very remiss in doing so especially since I keep seeing not only other blogs doing so, but friends on Facebook who are full in organization mode. I promise I have oodles of ideas to share, but .....I am still so on Cloud 9 about my office redo that I just can't focus on anything else.

As I mentioned in my last post HERE, I am in the process of creating my Dream Space as I have been calling it for my office. The truth is that now that I have switched to the office away from the kitchen, I spend far less time in my office. Figures. But...I think when it's complete, I won't want to leave it EVER.

So far I have my walls completely painted. YAY! What a job it was, but I as so over the moon about the way it turned out. So...I thought I'd share. I know stripes are very "in" right now in decor and I was truthfully a little intimidated to try it, but I'm so happy that I did. It has inspired me to take some more risks with color and design in other areas of our home. For now though, it's all about my Dream Space.

Here is the before: (somewhat before at least...I did not take a true before when it was my husband's office)

A powdery blue wall...of course this is after I spackled, taped and tested out the paint colors.

It was a complete disaster of furniture and other stuff from the office swap.

I was able to find some very helpful directions on how to measure, tape, etc. to do the stripes from "Classy Clutter" and I would highly recommend everything she mentioned. I followed her directions exactly and had no bleeding issue with the stripes.

The first step was to paint then entire room my base color of grey which was Behr (Home Depot's) Paint and Primer in One in the color "Gentle Rain". It's a soft grey and it's been easy to work with in terms of coordinating with my accent colors for the room. The only problem I had was that the blue that was already on the walls was REALLY hard to cover.

Here is the room after two coats of the grey on all of the walls. They are not the best pictures because I took them at night.

I let the entire room dry for one whole day prior to starting the stripes. The very helpful and experienced salesperson in Home Depot told me to use Frog Tape to do my taping. She assured me that not only would it stick well, but it would ABSOLUTELY prevent bleeding....and, she was 100% right!

So after 24 hours I started measuring and taping. When I say that I followed the directions that I found, I literally measured my stripes the same amount too. In order to make the stripes, you need a pencil, ruler (not measuring tape), your tape and a level and a credit card. Yes, a credit card.

Here is the step by step:

1. Start at the ceiling and measure down how far you'd like your stripes to be. Mine are 9 inches each which allowed me to have a total of 5 grey and 5 white stripes on each wall.

2. Mark a small mark with your pencil at the 9 inch mark.

3. Run your tape between each mark to create a straight line of tape on each wall. I worked in somewhat small areas to give me more accuracy and then just had a little overlap between tape pieces. If you do it this way it is important to just make sure that your overlap matches up perfectly.

4. Double check with your level to make sure the tape is now level on the side that the paint will touch. For instance, my first stripe from the ceiling is grey so my first stripe that I'm actually painting is white. Therefore, my tape for that stripe sits within the grey area and the paint will only touch the bottom of the tape line. Hope that makes sense.

5. Use your credit card to smooth out the tape on the edge that will be a stripe. There is no need to do it on both sides since only one side of your tape will touch the paint and it makes it easier to remove. That is unless you're a very messy painter.

6. I marked the tape so that I knew what I was painting which color. A very valuable tip from "Classy Clutter" as well.

7. Tape your corners off too if you are not doing all 4 walls so that you don't get your stripe color on the already painted walls.

So here is what one side of the room looked like before I started painting. This is a somewhat small area to paint because my double window takes up a large part of the wall.

Once you are all taped make sure you RE-MEASURE. You do not want to find out after you have started that you made a measuring mistake. Now, you are ready to paint.

8. The last great tip from "Classy Clutter" was to paint the edges where the tape sits first and then go back and paint the middle of the stripes. I used a small foam roller around the edges and along the corner and then used a medium sized regular roller to roll the middle of each stripe.

Here is that same wall after the stripes were painted.

I painted 2 coats with a half day of drying in between. The key is to remove the tape on the stripes immediately after finishing painting. DO NOT wait for the paint to dry. My stripes were so crisp it was unbelievable. I really think this has to do with the Frog Tape and the credit card step. I found that the white did not cover my grey enough after 2 coats and I went back and touched up with a 3rd coat in areas that needed it.

I also did the wall opposite this one. So I have 2 solid and 2 striped walls. This was a much bigger wall and job, but I am so happy with the results. Here is the other side of the room.

Before Painting