I painted stripes in our previous house.

I used the same finish only variations of the same color (1 and 3/4 formulas), so I can't help with that aspect. However, I did use orange core blue tape and firmly pressed it down as I applied it and didn't have seepage, and I really checked.

Over on the painting forum I read about a new tape: it's called Frog Tape (it's green) and has some sort of sealant. I can't attest to it myself but it could be worth a try!

I can attest to the green tape and rmkitchen is right - press it down firmly.

I did the stripes with flat and eggshell - same color - in a light beige. It was definitely noticeable and more so at night when natural light was gone and lamps were turned on. Measuring and getting the tape on was a tedious pain and took longer than the painting itself, but the end result was exactly as I had hoped. I don't have pix because it was in a previous house.

I painted stripes in my girls' bathroom. Pink and Linen though, so quite a contrast.
Remove the tape while the paint is still wet. That is my only tip :) I used regular painters tape (blue), and it worked just fine. We have a skip trowel (I think that's how you say it) finish on our walls.

We bought a house that had tone-on-tone stripes in one of the bedrooms. They were a flat and eggshell finish of the same color, and the striping was pretty distinct. The entire room was a really dark marine blue., and, unfortunately, it looked ghastly. I trust that if you have the sense to ask any questions at all, you will know that a relentlessly dark blue striped room is a.bad.idea.

I have done it several times but don't like to use flat because if you need to wash it down for some reason,it doesn't work well. I use eggshell base and satin finish. Really pretty.

Thanks all. I've already bought the flat and eggshell so I guess I'll give it a whirl. I'm going to use 10" and 12" stripes, alternating, and it seems like the wider stripe should be flat, narrower; eggshell. Does that sound right? I will definitely look for the green tape. One other question; I read on one site that you should let the base coat dry for 48 hours before doing the stripes. Did any of you do that? That may kill my weekend timetable, but if it will truly work better, of course I'll do it. I'm going to be using BM Quincy Tan; a beige with a lot of green undertones.

On Colorsplash, Danielle was painting stipes. After the tape was put on the wall she used a clear sealer or something that when painted over the tape, it sealed it so that paint would not leak under.

I used a laser level (yay!) which really helped. I just used tape and tried to seal the edges well. I did off white with a pale brown kinda stripe, little contrast, so any minor imperfections were not noticeable (by me anyway).

For tone-on-tone stripes, I found a method that works great! Paint the entire room in the solid color you like (eggshell finish). Then, mask off the strips in the width you desire. Now, instead of painting the strips with paint, use a satin or semi-gloss clear water-based polyeurethane. It creats a great tone-on-tone look with clearly defined stripes, yet saves having to select 2 coordinating paints.

I did a dining room in solid red with using the clear poly to create strips and the tone-on-tone stripes turned out out amazing - subtle yet sophosticated.

I did the same thing in my powder room with satin and flat. I didn't use tape just penciled in the lines and used an angled brush and did it freehand. Here is a pic:

Thermsen, thanks for the photo. I'm now leaning towards satin and flat also; afraid the eggshell won't show up enough. I'm trimming out the room for the flat coat now and seeing your photo makes me so anxious to get the stripes going. Did you wait 48 hrs before doing the stripes?

thermsen, My timetable was probably optimistic...just got the trimming done today, will roll the walls out tomorrow, then do the stripes on Sunday. I checked some decorating sites and only one mentioned the 48 hr waiting time so I'll probably ignore that and hope that 24 hrs is enough. I'm using BM Quincy Tan which is sort of a greenish/taupe color. Thanks again for the photos. Your stripes are beautiful!

I painted this and it's not your tone on tone, but I just used the blue tape and it worked fine. It was on a bumpy textured wall, too. You just need to burnish your tape down good. I ended up sorry that I didn't do wider stripes, though. Too much taping.

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LOL! In the first picture you can see the brick of the fireplace as I fauxed it, and in the second pic you can see I hadn't done around the edge of the brick yet. Also in that first picture some of the horizontal lines, which really are very straight, don't look straight because of the computer pixels, sorry.

Thermsen
Your powder room came out just stunning! I've thought about trying that and now I'm more inclined. Do you get a lot of compliments on it? I'm sure you must.

Thermsen, your bathroom is gorgeous!! What color is that? We have half bath and that, including the stripes, is what I've been envisioning for it! Great job!!

I want to do this in our dining room. The living room is attached and will be painted the same color with an eggshell finish. I wanted to then paint the stripes in a semi gloss same color, White Pine, I will post pics. Want to get the accent wall and wallpaper done this weekend. Wall paper is the paintable kind that looks like tin. Accent wall is going to be Red Velvet. Leads from living room to family room.
Will post pics.

lynnski - I think you bought my home. That was my sons bedroom.

JUST KIDDING!!! LOL

I have done three rooms in various house. Twice I used egg shell and semi-gloss paints. Once, I used the tone-on-tone method using red paint and then a poly gloss. I used blue tape for all.

Here is the bathroom in my last home.

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Here is a link to RMS on HGTV. Steve sometimes visits here. Maybe he could answer some of your questions. Anyway, here is a beautiful DR.

Here is a link that might be useful: Stripes

I posted these pics on another thread about my dining room (it finally belongs!) but since this one got revived I thought I'd show a photo of the stripes we did. I used 10" and 12" alternating stripes. I ended up doing them twice; first time was flat wall paint; BM Quincy Tan, then used porter paint satin matched to BM Quincy tan. Not sure if the paint match was quite right or if the satin finish gave it a different look, but the color really turned very yellow/green once we added those satin finish stripes. So I painted over them with BM quincy tan eggshell, and I like it much better. It is hard to see the stripes in these photos, but you definitely see them IRL. The look is subtle but interesting.

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this shows the stripes in satin

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The last three photos are the flat/eggshell. I like the color match better. In general it was not a hard project, and I used the 3M blue tape and it worked fine. We also used the laser level which sticks directly to the wall, and it made taping the lines a breeze.

Overall, it turned out well and was not really that hard to do.

Oh my...what a beautiful dining room! Maybe that's what I need to do to warm up my room. However, that would mean I would have to recover my host and hostess chairs. Hmmmmm