DIY: How to paint perfect wall stripes

I desperately wanted striped walls in my nursery, but my OCD had to make sure they were done right. No baby wants a twitchy mommy every time we walk into a room with crooked lines on the walls. So I'm going to share with you a compiled list of dos and do nots that I found while reading countless other tutorials.

Paint your base color. Make sure you leave plenty of time for it to cure. This is a process that should not be rushed.

You're going to want both a tape measure and laser level. Unfortunately, there's no rocket science to this part, but you need to summon your inner obsessive compulsive and do not half-ass this step. Figure out roughly how tall you want your stripes, then divide the height of your wall by that number and round to the nearest whole number. Refigure your stripe height to ensure all the stripes will be the same.

Using your laser level and tape measure, start measuring, marking, re-measuring, adjusting, re-measuring and double triple checking your points. Again, you will be sorry if your lines are not level. Do not rush this step.

USE FROG TAPE. Do not skimp and buy the 3M or generic brand. I have used both and it is an unbelievable difference when it comes to paint seeping under the tape. I will repeat, use Frog Tape!! Be sure to also put the tape on the inside or outside of your mark depending on which area needs to be painted.

Use tape or some way to indicate which stripes don't need to be painted so you don't accidentally start painting the wrong area.

Here's the biggest tip I can offer. On the day you're planning on painting, take the original base color and paint a strip (an inch or so tall) half across the tape and half into the area you're going to be painting the new color. This helps seal the tape down and IF there's any seepage, it's going to be the base color seeping onto the base color. No big deal. Read the paint can and let dry for the hour or whatever it says before you begin painting your new color.

You want to do this step right before you paint the new color so that it doesn't have time to cure and you risk peeling or chipping the paint. Minimal drying time is all you'll need before you can paint over it.

Go ahead and paint your new stripe color. You're going to want to get all the necessary coats in on one day. Let the first coat dry for however long the paint can indicates and then get your second coat on right away. This is for the same reason as above... you're not going to want to risk cracking or peeling if the paint sits too long on top of the tape. Remove the tape SLOWLY at an angle as soon as you're done with your last coat.

We were extremely surprised with how clean the lines turned out. We only did two walls in a pretty tiny room and it was fairly time consuming. Measuring and taping took roughly 2-3 hours and painting two coats (with dry time) took most of the day. It's so worth it though. I absolutely LOVE how the nursery turned out. Check out my nursery reveal post to see how it all came together!

Lil Arch's Yellow + Grey Gender Neutral Nursery

Way back in July, the nursery transformation commenced. However, when two different companies take over 6 months to deliver the correct essential furniture, my OCD brain can't start decorating until all the big pieces are in place. I still have one or two pieces of artwork that need to be finished up and obviously some nice baby photos that need to be filled in. Other than that, I'm too antsy to wait anymore to show off our nursery... and I have a few family members that are threatening us if we keep it a secret any longer.  :)

We had decided on a yellow and grey nursery for a couple reasons: 1) obviously it's gender neutral -- not only for this baby, but all future Lil Archs, and 2) Clay and I have very similar modern decorating ideas and felt greys with a bold accent color would work best for us.

Momma Z spent several days at my house helping doing most of the work when it came to painting. We are both super thrilled with how the stripes turned out. Check out my tutorial with all the secrets I found on other blogs to paint successful stripes.

The two dressers and crib came from Baby Cache via Babies R Us. We chose the Essentials Collection in white because it was the most modern looking we could find for a pretty decent price.

In addition to being a fantastic painter, my mom is a talented seamstress as well. She made all of Lil Arch's bedding which includes yellow, light grey and dark grey sheets and pillow cases, the bumper pads, crib skirt and her first quilt ever that turned out beautifully! She also did the handkerchief curtain (1), decorative pillow for the glider (2) and a yellow and white contoured changing pad cover (3) -- tutorial here.

I couldn't seem to find bedding or any other linens that weren't in super child-like prints or pastels. My mother thankfully knows about my OCD and how I feel about colors/shades needing to match exactly, so I am very thankful for all the time she put into making everything exactly to my liking. xoxo

Side note: when organizing drawers, don't forget to take advantage of baskets/dividers/tupperware (4) within the drawer. They keep things neat and organized!

I was looking for some sort of light a little brighter than the Scentsy plug-in nightlight I have so I didn't have to flip the overhead on for middle of the night diaper changes. Momma Z had this old brass touch lamp which was the perfect size for my dresser. God bless spray paint. I was a little concerned the paint would make the "touch" feature useless, but it still works perfectly fine.

I also saw an example once of a mom, dad and baby hospital photo collage that I really liked. So I took the same concept and scaled it down into one 3-image frame. I repurposed the frame that I had down in my storage bin with a fresh coat of yellow paint. It currently holds both Clay's and my hospital photos... anxiously awaiting to fill that third slot.

Fake family will have to do for now until there are baby photos. The mirror was $15 at Meijer which I also slapped a few coats of yellow paint on the frame to bring more color into the room. The picture frames were $9 and $3 each from Meijer as well which I took some silver spray paint to.

I'm envious how organized the baby's closet is compared to my own. A huge thanks to Papa Z for installing the closet organizer during one of his trips home! I purchased ten collapsable canvas totes for all the random stuff. Menards had the best deal I could find at $5.88 per tote. Armed with my label maker, I nicely labeled every tote so even Clayton can find things. A huge thank you again to former classmate Brenda Martin for making dividers for all of Lil Arch's clothes! These labeled dividers are a godsend and would put these on my "list of baby gear no new mother should go without!"

My sisters-in-law started this print out at the Archambault shower and had every guest add their finger print to the tree. Then it made its way over to the other shower for my side of the family to add their prints. I love that it meshes in so well with our decor and has such a personal touch to it. Lil Arch, you are so loved by so many people!

Miss Zora is especially a fan of the new carpet from Lowes. It's incredibly soft and I think she likes the feel of it on her hairless belly because she always stretches out like this whenever she's in the room. Glad she likes it because I have a feeling (hopefully) that her and Lil Arch will be best buddies.