There are so many tutorials out there, I thought I would spare you another. Especially since mine is more of a caution post.

Here it goes, I feel like today, and many of my DIY’s are cautionary tales. . .sheesh! Well, what is the point of a blog if I can’t be honest? Here it goes, I decided to paint stripes on the dining room wall. I didn’t feel like borrowing my dad’s chalk line, so I measured each edge and the middle of each line

and pulled the tape really well to make a straight line. I knew I wanted 6″ stripes since the wall is 108″ and this would even out perfectly. I did it, I got pretty straight lines:

Then I painted the tape edges in the base color–that we had in the garage by Benjamin Moore— to avoid the black color from bleeding through:

Then I let them dry:

Okay, seems easy enough, well first of all, I decided to skim on the second coat on the edges. So, that was my first mistake. Then, I didn’t want to spend on the Frog Tape so I decided to use whatever tape we had, not good as we have textured walls. I did have Mod Podge that I could’ve used to seal the edges before paining, but I didn’t.

I decided to paint the black lines–that we had in the garage in Caviar by Sherwin Williams– and let them dry over night. The next day, I decided to give the black a second coat then I painted the white stripes again as I noticed little tiny specs of black paint on the base board. While the walls were still wet–both black and white–I decided to pull the tape off. I learned this from experience, it is always best to pull the tape off when the paint is wet so you don’t remove the paint. This happened to us in the playroom.:

The walls look good:

Until you get close–insert the Jaws song–dadum dadum. . .dadum dadum:

Okay, so I may always be the go-to for cautionary reasons. It’s okay, we are all good at something. Hahaha If my pain helps you–tear– so be it! My daughter loved these stripes and now wants them in her room. Goodness! After I clean up this mess by fixing these messy bleeding lines, I will work on hers with Frog Tape and the Frog Glue to seal it. I am not risking it this time!

What are your DIY woes (insert cricket sound here)? I hope someone out there lets me know I am not the only cautionary tale!