How to Paint and Tape Shadow Stripes

The subtle elegance of shadow stripes is achievable for even an inexperienced homeowner. As in all interior house painting projects, thorough preparation is the key. Even experienced professional painters spend the bulk of their project time in planning and preparing a job.

Click here to read our previous post about planning shadow stripes.

The first step is to paint the wall the desired color with 2 or more coats of flat paint. This first set of coats must be absolutely dry before proceeding to the next step, or results will be disastrous! Once the flat coats are perfectly dry, apply painter's tape to the wall according to the desired pattern. The tape will cover the wall where the flat-paint stripes will be, while the bare spaces between the tape will be painted with the glossy finish.

The most efficient and simple method for taping your stripes is to use the tape itself as your ruler. Choose a stripe width that can be achieved by placing pieces of tape side-by-side. For example, 2 inches is a common width for painter's tape, so to measure your 6-inch stripe, you can simply lay three pieces of tape side-by-side. For the sake of simplicity, I will use this example in the following instructions.

Begin your taping in a corner opposite the most common viewing angle or focal point in the room. Begin with the bare space for a glossy stripe, tape your first flat stripe beside it. To measure the width of the glossy stripe, tear off six short (3-4 inch) pieces of the tape. Starting from the top corner, place these pieces vertically on the wall, carefully lining up the edges to get an accurate 6 inch width. Do the same procedure in the bottom corner. Now you have a top and bottom reference point, and you can apply a length of tape from top to bottom, again aligning it with the edges of the farthest tape markers. Beside this strip of tape, apply two more, being careful to keep the edges lined up exactly. Now, you can remove your small tape strips from the stripe that will be painted, and you have your first two stripes: 6 inches of open space and 6 inches taped.

Use those same short strips again to mark out 6 inches at the top and bottom, and continue this pattern across the wall. If you get to a corner and a stripe runs into it, wrap the pattern around the corner and keep going. You can do the same thing when the pattern runs across window and door-frames. As you work, continue to check that your tape edges match snugly together, and that the tape is pressed down firmly so that paint cannot seep underneath.

Once the taping is complete, use a brush or roller to apply the glossy finish to the exposed areas. It is very important that after you have painted one or two stripes, you must remove the tape before continuing. If the paint begins to dry on the tape, it will tear when the tape is removed and the wall will require repair. The easiest way to remove the tape without a mess is to start at the top and coil the paint in on itself as you peel it off. This contains the paint within a tape ball, which you can easily throw away.

After painting your stripes and removing your tape, step back and enjoy the results (and don't hang up your pictures until it's dry!).

Manor Works, a professional house painting contractor based in Sterling, VA, is highly accomplished in painting shadow stripes and other elegant decorative faux finishes. We guarantee fantastic results and customer satisfaction, and our residential painting services can be seen on houses throughout Potomac Falls, Sterling, Stone Ridge, South Riding, Aldie, Leesburg, Purcellville, Hamilton and the whole Washington, D.C. area.

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