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Stripes in the Dining Room

Our living room, dining room and kitchen are all open to each other so  I wanted the colors in each room to flow but still be their own space. I found curtains that matched the living room pillows to bring that color into the dining room then I became stuck. I’d been staring at a white dining room for about 2 months and it was driving me crazy. It looked very plain. Everything was black and white except for the one pop of color in my curtains. I couldn’t figure out how to get more color in there to make the curtains flow with everything else.  I didn’t think I could paint because the room is open to the kitchen and living room so there isn’t really a space to stop the color. Then one day I was staring at the same wall and thought what if I put one band of color around the room. I could stop at the kitchen cabinet and it wouldn’t look bad. I taped it off and then thought…Hmm, I could do one more below it and space it out enough to stop at the island. So I taped off another stripe.

 

Then I painted them in with leftover living room paint (Valspar paint that I had color matched to Restoration Hardware's Silver Sage). I love the color and it didn’t cost me anything extra. It also made the space cohesive and gave the room some pattern. I’m in love with this room now. It finally looks put together and works well with the living room while still having it’s own identity. I know the light fixture doesn’t go but this is military housing so I’m just lucky I was able to paint.

Here’s how the room looked the day we moved it.

 

Here are some more after pictures.

 

This is my Stripe Tutorial…

I took my tape measure and measured down from the ceiling where I wanted the stripe to start, I think it was about 14 3/4”, and made a dot with my pencil. Then I went all around the room measuring down from the ceiling and making a dot at 14 3/4”. Then I took my painters tape and connected the dots. Then I measured down from the painters tape for how wide I wanted the stripe to be, I think it was around 24”, and did the same thing around the room…You get the idea. I took my base color and painted along the tape line before I filled in with the stripe color so when I pulled the tape up the line would be smooth. I’m sure there are better ways to do it but this is what worked for me.