Taping Off Floor for Painted Diamond Pattern
Work continues in my daughters' bedroom. I figured that taping off for the diamond pattern would be fairly simple, but I'm amazed at how hard it was to get the diamonds perfectly square and just right. I just worked on the taping off and on for three days and eventually finished it, thank goodness.
Here are some photos of the floor all taped off and nowhere to go. These are 20" squares and the ones marked with a small piece of tape in the center will be painted green, the same color as the walls. For those of you who may be reading about this project for the first time, the (sub)floors are painted with three coats of white gloss porchpaint.
By the way, if anyone sees a crooked line, I.don't.want.to.know. :)
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5 comments:
Ugh...boy does that bring back memories!
And remind me of something we'll be doing again soon.
Great tape job!
Thanks, Bill! I'll always be reminded of this project everytime I go to the first page of your website, hehe.
KIm - Just want to make sure that you realize that with this taping configuration your green diamonds will be smaller than your white diamonds, and they won't touch each other. Only your white diamonds will touch each other. Speaking from experience... :)
Thanks, Bill. Yeah, I realized when I was more than halfway finishes with the taping off that this was going to be the case. It does bother me a bit as I had planned on a perfectly patterned floor - everything the same size and touching at the corners. I even did some research and came up empty handed.
Do you happen to know how to go about taping off to get everything just right? I imagine it involves taping off the floor in various stages throughout the painting process instead of taping it all off at once.
(Blogger commenting system was down yesterday when Bill attempted to post the following...)
I tried to post to your site, but the posting application is down right now.
Sadly, I don't know of a way to get the diamonds to touch without redoing all of your hard taping work. But it can be done in one stage. All you need to do is mark the intersections of your present pieces of tape. Maybe push a pushpin lightly through the center of each tape intersection. Then pull up the present tape and tape all of your white squares off individually, going from pin to pin. I would stick another piece of marker tape in the center of your white squares so you know not to paint them. It could get confusing.
Maybe an easier tactic, using your present taping, would be to mark the center of your intersection with a pen and then use an X-acto knife and straight edge to lightly cut from corner to corner across the present tape. Then peel up the half of the strip of tape that is on the green box side. The remaining piece of tape will be pretty skinny, so you'll have to paint carefully. And you may not want to cut like that on your floor.
I hope the above explanations makes sense. Kinda hard to describe. If not, lemme know.
I mocked up a quick representation of what your present taping configuration will give you. (Was having a hard time visualizing it myself.) It's attached to help you decide which way you want to go. (I just made up a green.)
http://www.onewomanslife.com/kimfloor.bmp
Good luck!!
Bill
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