Laker Surprise

My guy sure has been the solid rock in the relationship during this whole home buying, fixing up, moving in process. When I found out he was going on a weekend deep sea fishing trip with his dad and brother, I knew this was my chance to give back to him in a way I knew he would enjoy. He is a huge Los Angeles Laker fan. Huge. So during my million of Home Depot trips I saw they have licenses team colors by Glidden (www.mostcolorfulfan.com). He has his own 'man cave' in the house that he plans on making his Laker Room. Perfect!

So I purchased a gallon of the Laker Gold and Purple, a few new rollers, brushes, tape, drop cloth and started my project. Now I pondered for a good 20 minutes on what to do with the actual paint. They are such strong colors I didn't want to do every wall. I picked the wall furthest from the door to do an accent wall.

I then broke out my laser level and painters tape to create stripes similar to the stripes on a home jersey. I had purchased one of those edger tools to help eliminate the taping/cutting in. But honestly, they created more of a mess that needed to be taped and corrected. Save the money and take the time to tape.

I used Scotch Blue painters tape with the edge lock protection. That didn't really work out too well on textured walls as I discovered after I painted and started to pull off the tape. I explain below.

So the bottom wall gets a healthy coverage of yellow. Then the top half. By now it's starting to look a lot like Kraft Mac & Cheese. I am praying it gets better. LOL

The middle gets a coat of the purple. (The blue tape in the middle will be white stripes).


When painting with a dark/light paint combo, I have always heard to start with the lighter color first. In MY case, not so much. I discovered what happened with that and I will explain below. The reason why I say in MY case to paint the dark color first, is because when I applied the purple, it dripped onto the yellow.

Since the purple was such a dark color, I then had to break out a white primer, paint over the spots and let dry. Once it was dry, I had to repaint several coats of the yellow to get it to match. It wasted my time. I think if you are going to do something similar where you are NOT painting right on top of another color, to paint the dark first. It would have been easier to cover up any drips.

The next day I apply a few more coats to get that clean coverage on both colors. Then I started to remove the tape. Looking good so far....until I got up close.


That is when I discovered painters tape works better on a smooth surface. No matter how well I applied the tape and smoothed it out, I still got some spotty areas. So I broke out one of my paint brushes to clean up the edges. Time consuming? Yes. Worth it? YES!

Well after about 10 total hours working on the accent wall making it perfect, I was pretty darn proud of myself. I couldn't wait for my guy to return home the next day. I was dying to post pictures on Facebook, but I didn't want him to see them before he could see it in person.



Finally my guy comes home! He was super excited to see his surprise. He immediately put on his Lakers Jersey and I snapped a photo. I am so glad he enjoyed his surprise!