Stripes are a great way to add immediate visual interest to any room. In most situations, horizontal stripes help elongate a room and vertical stripes add visual height to a space. I also believe that horizontal stripes add a more up-to-date contemporary feel to space, while vertical stripes are more classic and traditional. One thing to be aware of is the width of the stripes. Small width vertical stripes work really well in children spaces and wider width stripes are more modern and "grown-up".
These are examples of three different uses of stripes that I have done for clients. One uses stripes to act as a chair rail detail for a college aged young man's room. The space is down in a basement, so I did not want to overwhelm the already "cave-like" feeling with a dark heavy color, nor did I want it to just be a solid light color. By adding the darker color on the bottom of the wall at chair rail height with the lighter color above, it adds enough interest and dimension to the room without making the room feel darker than it really is.
The next example is of a foyer I did for a client. Although it already is a long entry way, the client's taste is more contemporary so I chose horizontal stripes instead of vertical. When you walk into the house, you get a glimpse of three different blues, so the color that I added to the foyer needed to go with all of the colors and not compete with any of them. Instead of doing two different color stripes, I did a semi-gloss paint over a flat paint that adds a great deal of texture and dimension to the walls, yet is very subtle in certain lighting.
The last example is a room that connects to the client's master bedroom and is used for scrap-booking and gift wrapping. The client wanted something fun and refreshing, and also asked for the gray painted trim to stay. Immediately a yellow, white, and gray color scheme became the room's concept. I chose vertical stripes for they work really well with the dormer windows, making a tent-like effect and add height to the opposite wall.
