I love stripes. I made wavy ones in my daughter’s room to match a room we saw at the Paradise Pier in Disneyland. I made stripes along the soffit in my kitchen to pull all the colors in my kitchen together. But my favorite stripes so far are the ones in my living room.
I have a large living room that is all white. It was one of the few rooms I hadn’t painted yet. I wanted to paint it, I just didn’t know what color I wanted it to be. I kept buying those little sample containers of paint at Home Depot and Lowes so I could try out several colors. One day I walked by the wall with all my paint samples on it and decided I liked all the colors!
Living room before stripes
I decided to make stripes on just one wall. I would start with the lightest color and work my way down to darker colors. After four stripes I thought the wall reminded me of something…but what? I stepped back and took a good look at my work. Then it hit me – I had just painted one of those paint sample cards!
Looks like a paint sample card!
I almost stopped right there but I decided to continue on and finish the project. After it was finished I would repaint it if I didn’t like it. But it turns out I love it! It’s bright and fun! It’s just what the room needed!
Unfortunately once I re-do something in a room it makes other things look bad. My brown couch looked terrible against the bright orange and yellow wall. I had to change it. Since buying a new couch is out of the question right now I had to work with what I had. I bought fabric at Hobby Lobby and make pillow cases for the pillows all along the back of the couch. I decided on pillow cases instead of completely sewing the pillows in their new cases so I could remove them easily if they needed to be washed. I just tuck the extra fabric behind the pillow. I bought teal blankets at Target and tucked them into the couch.
Making the stripes
Once that was done, the fireplace looked a little sad. I painted that a teal color that is similar to the couch. My 11 year old daughter made the cute painting above the fire place.
Click here to see how she did it. My once blah, white living room is now bright and lively. Every time someone walks in the front door they see it and want to come in further to get a better look.
Paints I used from top to bottom:
Peach Tickle – Valspar
Butterscotch Cream – Valspar
Juicy Cantaloupe – Behr
Dragon Fire – Behr
Volcanic Blast – Behr
Fairmont Suite Clay – Valspar
Fire place – La Fonda Turquoise – Velspar