The Anderson Life: I still have paint under my fingernails...

We have been painting our new apartment like crazy these last two weeks. We started with the cabinets in our bedroom, which were an odd combination of olive green, orange and yellow. They are now white, as is the previously mauve and green stairwell leading to our patio and garage. Both of those projects took three days, each! It seemed like we would be knee deep in white paint forever. But then, we saw the light at the end of the proverbial tunnel.

Now the good stuff starts! We decided on chevron stripes for the spare room, which will be my office. Our green plaid couch will go in here and I thought a coral color would look perfect on the wall! So, after looking at several tutorials, including this one (a huge help), we got the supplies together and got movin'.

The blue lines you see were made with a chalk marker that I got a Lowe's for $6-ish. I was amazed at how cheap that was. Anyway, you will need to measure the height and width of the wall, then figure out how many lines you will need to make the size chevron you want. Now that the chalk lines are up you can tape off the chevrons - I used Frog Tape, it looked like this:

Then we started painting, we ended up using two coats of Valspar's Homestead Apricot (2005-3C) in semi-gloss. I, of course, tried to stay in the lines, but I am such a messy painter it was nearly impossible.

Once finished we let it dry for a little bit, then we took the tape off. I used a magic eraser to get rid of the chalk lines and paint that wandered out of the tape lines - that worked perfectly because the paint was still a little wet - and voila!

I absolutely love it!

Next came the front room wall - I ordered our stencil here, and it has turned out to be so much easier than I thought! We are just doing one coat of Valspar's La Fonda Deep Blue (4011-7) in semi-gloss, we really like the faded, varied look it gives us. I used painter's tape to tape the stencil to the wall, a level to make sure I had the stencil level, obviously, and a 4" foam roller. Dip the roller in the paint and then roll it a couple times on a paper towel, you don't want too much paint on the roller or it will drip and your stencil lines will not be as crisp (I learned that one the hard way).