Teach Me Tuesday: Painting Straight Lines

If you would like to be featured in an upcoming edition of Teach Me Tuesday, please email me at LivingWithLindsay@gmail.com and we’ll chat!

The inaugural Teach Me Tuesday post features a great DIY instruction by my friend JJ at the BLAH BLAH BLAHger. She shows us how to paint – wait for it – straight lines. I know it sounds so incredibly simple, but if you’ve tried it, you know it’s not.

JJ bought a very cool art installation and wanted to paint a section of the wall above her headboard to highlight the piece. She teaches us how:

First, get your handy dandy laser level (mine cost me 15 bucks at the Depot) and tape off your stripes in about 18 inch segments. Don’t go too long on the tape, otherwise it will be unruly to get straight lines and can be troublesome when it comes to pulling the tape off. **JJ’s note: move your headboard, 600-thread count sheets, etc, before you begin a painting project.

If you have textured walls, such as the JJ does, you’ll need to go through by hand and get the tape into the grooves and crevices. This is a pain in the butt, but you’ll be much happier later when you don’t have leaks everywhere. **Lindsay’s note: I can totally attest to how awful this will look if you skip this step. Just ask me why it took DH an entire week to paint our dining room.

If you’re painting a saturated color, like red, you’ll want a primer with a tinge of color. Because I was using a deep red to match my pillows and drapes on the other wall, I got pink. Don’t worry, I didn’t paint my wall pink!

Once the primer is finished, pull the tape off. It’s important to take the tape off while the paint is still wet…otherwise, the tape can pull off the dry paint and nobody wants that! **Lindsay’s note: Um, yeah. I can totally attest to that, too.

It’s also important not to sleep next to a painty wall…you might have weird dreams due to the fumes. I slept in the living room on the aerobed. Hi Whoopi!

Now, it’s time to put the tape back on and get started on the real paint job! Go through the motions again and get the tape down into the dreaded lumps. Then, get your paint on! **JJ’s note: even though you’ve primed, don’t expect your saturated color to go on perfectly the first time. I needed a couple of coats to get my red to the right color!

Make sure to paint the edges just as dark as the center…you don’t want to have blotchy sections. Another trick in fighting the “blotch” is to paint in Ws, rather than straight up and down…nobody likes lines in their paint jobs! **Lindsay note: I love this tip! I’d never heard to paint in Ws, but I’m gonna try it next time.

In spite of the fact you used tape, don’t freak if it didn’t work out perfectly…like I did. Instead, whip out your base color and smooth over the edges. **Lindsay note: One of those really small artists paint brushes, like the kind that comes with your kids’ watercolor set, is perfect for this kind of touch up.

Once the paint is dry, it’s time to pull out the laser level again to hang the art piece!

You’re just dying to see the finished product, aren’t ya? It’s fabulous! Head on over to the BLAH BLAH BLAHger to check it out. I absolutely LOVE it and am very jealous of her sassy new art display. Great job, JJ!

Now it’s your turn! Are you ready to share one of your best DIY posts? It can be an older, favorite post or a brand new one you’ve just put together. I’m ready to see the fantastic ideas that you have turned into reality. I’m ready for you to teach me!

Please link directly to the post that shares your DIY tutorial (not your general blog address). Also, please link back to Living with Lindsay so that your readers will be able to find us and participate in our linky fun! I’ll have to delete any posts that don’t meet these two rules…we don’t want any random blog posts trying to crash our Teach Me Tuesday party, do we?

Join us right here next Tuesday for another installment of Teach Me Tuesday! Who knows…I may be featuring YOU!