Ideas for Painting Borders

Child's Room

• Borders in a child's room can match the child's personality. Stencil-paint a border of trucks in primary colors 4 feet from the floor. Make the color above the border a shade lighter than the shade below it. You can also create a jungle theme a boy's room with zebras, elephants and giraffes stenciled in a border near the ceiling. A girl's room can have walls painted pink with the lower half of the walls painted a shade of pink slightly darker than the top half. A ballerina or flower border can be painted at the point where the two colors meet.

Bathroom

• You can paint your bathroom sky blue, then create a border of sponge-painted flowers, fish, bubbles or clouds across the top of the walls. Buy a shower curtain, towels and counter accessories in the color of the border. You can create another interesting border by painting it in a contrasting color 3 feet from the floor with a sponge-surfaced roller pulled between penciled border lines for uniformity. You can choose from many different roller surfaces.

Kitchen

• To brighten up the kitchen, you can stencil a border of sunflowers on ivory-painted walls. Hang kitchen curtains in a yellow shade material that matches the yellow in the sunflowers. Apples are another kitchen border that make a kitchen feel warm and inviting. Another border for a kitchen is a 3-foot-high white, picket fence painted on top of light Dresden blue walls. You can stencil ivy or flowers or both on the picket fence to add color and design. You can even stencil on a flowerpot.

Master Bedroom

• You can paint or stencil a geometric border at the top of all four bedroom walls in dark blue, muted periwinkle blue and dark burgundy. Add a bedspread, curtains or a window valance in burgundy. Add pillow shams in muted periwinkle and dark blue for a coordinated look. A hand-painted or stenciled flower or ivy border 3 feet from the floor boards is another border idea. Add a bedspread, pillows and swag curtains in the color shades of the painted border. A light voile, curtain beneath a darker swag softens the effect of the multi-shaded border.

Living Room

• A painted wall-top border dramatizes living room decor. A dark blue border 3 feet up from the floorboards on white walls is also good for effect. Coordinate the dark blue border with light and dark blue patterned curtains, and a dark blue couch. You can create the same effect by painting a dark green border on walls a couple of shades lighter. This can also be done with browns and oranges. Bring home paint chips from the paint store in several color combinations and see which colors fit your living room the best.