Why I'll Never Paint Stripes Again...

I suppose this post could also be called "How I spent All Weekend Crying into a Bucket of Paint".

It was no secret to us that the dude who lived in the house before us was no Mr Fix-It, he's probably closer to Mr Cover-It-Up-So-No One-Will-See-The-Mess-I-Made (but that's too long to say). The small basement 1/2 bath was begging for a little personality so we decided to go stripey, which wouldn't have been a problem if any of the walls in this place were true. And I'm not talking just a little bit off, these walls and ceiling and floors are insanely crooked. It's like the guys who finished the basement just eyeballed everything. Sigh.

Here's a quick recap of what we saw when we toured the house for the first time...

I used plain old white paint that the old owner had left behind and a tester pot from another room (more on that to come). The white was the lighter colour (duh) so I roughed in where I wanted the lighter stripes. At this point everything was going smoothly and I was pretty confident this would be a quick job. I was wrong.

The crookedness of the walls isn't immediately obvious when everything is the same frickin beige colour, but once I started taping it all became apparent.

I first started measuring from the floor, when I got to the ceiling I realized that something was 'off'. So I started using a level, but that didn't help either because when I got to the floor or ceiling it was super obvious how ridiculous the lines were. Then I started sweating and just decided to 'eyeball' it. Yep, I gave in. I decided to initially use my measurements from the ground, then when it started to get obvious that the slope was off I manually corrected it to be 'straighter' (which I guess in this case is a relative term). I got to perfect my 'eyeball' technique on the other 3 walls.

I'm probably just being a perfectionist when it comes to these lines but in the end I am totally happy with the result and will be back shortly to share the complete room. Until then, enjoy these crisp semi-straight, tear-inducing stripes.

 Oops...ran out of painter's tape (my bestfriend and worse enemy in this process)