Painting Perfect Stripes: A Step-by-Step Guide by Craig & Rose
Stripes are a timeless interior design trend that can make a bold statement or add subtle sophistication to your walls. Here’s our easy guide to painting perfect stripes, so you can create stunning feature walls with ease.
Feb '25
Perfect Stripes
At Craig & Rose, we’re here to help you transform your home with confidence, empowering your creativity and providing everything you need to achieve professional results at home. Stripes are a timeless interior design trend that can make a bold statement or add subtle sophistication to your walls. Here’s our easy guide to painting perfect stripes, so you can create stunning feature walls with ease.

What You'll Need:
- Your chosen paint colours from the Craig & Rose range
- Ball of string
- Chalk
- Tape measure
- Sandpaper
- Scissors
- Dustsheet
- Tin opener
- Decorator’s tape
- Paint stirrer
- Roller and roller tray
Still deciding on the perfect wall paint colour? Try our mess-free Colour Patches to experiment with shades and discover your ideal combination.
Step 1: Prepare Your Wall
Preparation is key to achieving flawless results. Make sure your walls are dust free and clean, fill any holes or cracks and sand rough areas until smooth. Once your wall is fully prepped, apply your background colour to create the perfect base for your stripes. Let the base layer dry completely before moving to the next step.
Step 2: Plan Your Stripe Placement
Decide how wide you want each stripe to be, then measure the wall height for horizontal stripes or the wall width for vertical stripes to calculate how many stripes will fit.
Adjust the stripe width as needed to avoid uneven or awkward edges. Use a measuring tape to mark the start and end points of each stripe. For vertical stripes, mark the top and bottom of the wall; for horizontal stripes, mark the left and right sides.
Step 3: Create Chalk Lines
Rub chalk generously along a piece of string, making sure it’s well coated. Stretch the string tightly across your measured points, securing it with decorator’s tape at the top and bottom of the string. Pull the string back slightly and release it to snap a clean chalk line on the wall. Repeat this process for each stripe, measuring carefully to ensure the widths remain consistent.
Pro tip: Use a spirit level to double-check the alignment of your chalk lines if you want extra precision.
Step 4: Tape for Clean Edges
Apply decorator’s tape along the edge of your chalk lines to frame your stripes.
Pro Tip: Seal the tape with a thin layer of your base colour before applying the stripe colour. This clever hack ensures sharp, crisp edges and avoids unwanted paint bleeds - no one likes a wobbly stripe!
Step 5: Paint Your Stripes Like a Pro
Lightly mist your roller with water before dipping it into the tray. This helps the paint spread smoothly, reduces streaks and ensures even coverage. Apply your stripe colour using a roller.
Step 6: Reveal Your Masterpiece
Once the paint is completely dry, slowly peel back the decorator’s tape to reveal your stunning striped feature wall. Take a step back and admire your work!
Set yourself up for success with the right tools, explore our expertly crafted paint tools here. Then, show off your perfectly painted stripes on Instagram @craigandrosepaints for a chance to be featured on our feed!
There is a particular kind of joy in taking a room you see every day and making it feel entirely new. It is a feeling that sits at the heart of our Colour Forecast 2026, and one we wanted to explore through a real transformation.
For this bathroom project, we partnered with Matt Hatt, whose playful, hands-on approach captures the pleasure of decorating from first idea to final reveal. Known for his theatrical touch and his instinct for pairings that are daring yet considered, Matt brings real warmth and personality to everything he touches.
His brief was one many will recognise: to bring personality and cohesion to a main bathroom that, while structurally sound with its subway tiles, black grout and classic fittings, felt out of step with the rest of his Victorian home. The space called for a palette that could honour its period character while introducing something confident and true to himself.
From the four curated palettes within Colour Forecast 2026, Matt was drawn to Timeless, a collection that pairs the elegance of heritage tones with the boldness to reinvent a room, grounded throughout by warm, enveloping neutrals
A Lifelong Love of Transformation
Ever since I was young I've enjoyed transforming the environment around me. I was one of those kids that would go up to my room, and spend all day, on my own, listening to music trying out new combinations before inviting my mum in for a 'Changing Room' style reveal. Always had a flair for the dramatics.
That feeling of making something you see everyday feel completely new has stayed with me, through the many flats I've rented over the years, to my first home that I bought 3 years ago with my boyfriend. Playing with colour and pattern and leaning into the joy of decorating.
Expert Knowledge, Distilled
As a self-taught interior 'creator', I'm always looking for tricks or expert knowledge that I can use in my transformations. Craig and Rose's Colour Forecast is just that, the brand's expert knowledge distilled down into 4 feelings you want and need your room to be in 2026.
The Room That Needed Warmth
Our main bathroom had been on my to do list for a while, the core of it was good, subway style tiles with black grout, a giant fitted bathroom cupboard, a classic white sink, but it lacked warmth, felt out of kilter with the rest of the house.
Why Timeless Stood Out
The Timeless immediately stood out, as they felt to me like they combined the elegance of colours that would suit my Victorian home with the boldness to create a whole new look, and the warmth through the neutrals I was craving.
Knowing that Craig and Rose had done all the hard work for me, and that any combination of beautiful colours from the palette would work helped me to be so decisive when choosing my colours.
Making It My Own
It left me more time to add some creativity into application, and use of colour. Paint is a hugely powerful way to change a space entirely, and by using some decorating tape and following the steps of the useful guide on painting the perfect stripes I now have the bathroom my Victorian home deserves. (Painting Perfect Stripes: A Step-by-Step Guide by Craig & Rose) I have achieved a real stand out space that makes me smile everyday. I adore the warmth of Mallord on the walls and ceiling, Papyrus and Oriental Red on the bath and cabinets, and pops of the energising Smalt on skirtings.
Looking Back
I think 12-year old Matt would be quite chuffed with how far we've come in our transformation skills.
Matt Hatt
The Bathroom a Victorian Home Deserves
With the hard work of colour selection already done, Matt was free to focus on the details that make a space personal, using decorating tape and a steady hand to bring striking painted stripes to life. The result is a bathroom that feels warm, characterful and entirely his own, from the depth of Mallord on the walls and ceiling to the pops of energising Smalt along the skirtings. It is a fitting reminder that, with the right palette to guide the way, a considered transformation can be as enjoyable to create as it is to live with.
His brief was one many will recognise: to bring personality and cohesion to a main bathroom that, while structurally sound with its subway tiles, black grout and classic fittings, felt out of step with the rest of his Victorian home. The space called for a palette that could honour its period character while introducing something confident and true to himself.
From the four curated palettes within Colour Forecast 2026, Matt was drawn to Timeless, a collection that pairs the elegance of heritage tones with the boldness to reinvent a room, grounded throughout by warm, enveloping neutrals
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