Custom Paint Tricks

Featured Pro: Kristan Cunningham
Category: Home Décor
Time: 4:10


KRISTAN CUNNINGHAM: Welcome to GMC Trade Secrets. Why opt for a traditional paint job on your walls when you can create a customized treatment so easily? I’m Kristan Cunningham, and I’ll show you how.

So we’re in a pretty basic room – white walls, no architectural details to speak of. But all of that will change with just a little bit of tape and paint. First thing, we start with a plan. Graph paper is great because it does all the measuring for you. We are going to add architectural detail to the windows. We’re going to create molding, and then one big racing stripe, and that’s going to be the backdrop for our art gallery. And it’s going to be black.

So first thing, we have to start measuring on the wall and taping. So this seems like an easy step, because we’re just putting up tape. But it is very important that you go on the outside of your pencil line. So, in other words, when I measured, I gave myself just a hair of room so that my tape is sitting inside of the pencil line, because when we paint, we’re going to paint this way. Whatever is in your white is going to show. And while you can erase pencil marks, it’s still going to look a little dirty. So if you can give yourself that room, just like that – I’m going right up to the pencil line without actually covering it.

All right, so once the tape is up, the most important part happens. And I’m going to let you in on my little secret as to how to get razor-sharp lines. This stuff is called acrylic gel medium. It’s sold in the art supply store with the acrylic paints. And it’s actually for artists to add to the paint. It gives them more body time with their paint. But we’re going to use it as a sealer.

So foam brush; get a little bit on there. Don’t wet the tape too much. You put it on nice and light. And what this essentially does is create a seal between the wall and the tape so that paint can’t bleed under. You put it on real light, get from the top to the bottom, and by the time you get down there, the top’s already going to be dry and you're ready to paint.

Okay, now we’re ready for paint. When you’re dealing with tape lines, it’s super-important that you load up your roller with just enough paint that you get good coverage and you don’t have to keep going over and over, because what you want to do is go right along with the tape, as opposed to pushing on it. If you push on it, you’re going to push paint underneath the tape. So roll with the lines as much as you can and try to get it loaded up enough to cover without having to go over and over.

It’s the part we’ve all been waiting for. This is when we pull off all of the tape. So out of all of this, we get this. And the coolest part is we paid for a couple of gallons of paint, a couple of rolls of tape, but we get a completely custom effect. And you don’t have to be an artist. You don’t have to be super-duper handy. You just need to be able to know how to use a level and throw up some tape.

So let’s look at what we did. We created moldings where there were none by using two-inch tape and creating a six-inch molding. We took the existing molding, which was four inches, added two-inch tape, and increased that to six inches as well. And, most importantly, we got this really, really cool racing stripe going around the distance of the room, where we can center art, and even our smaller pieces become so much more important because they have this cool backdrop.

So the whole thing cost hardly anything and took an afternoon, and the effect is outstanding.

I’m Kristan Cunningham, and that’s your GMC Trade Secret.