Modern Chevron Cork Tiles (with another tutorial)

Back in my sad little cube, I had a wall near my computer of what was likely corrugated cardboard covered in sad gray fabric where I could hang notes, reminders, and my kitsch. My fancy new office, while lovely, had no such built in feature.

I scoured the internet for something that might work and found many, many pinterest tutorials on how to paint chevrons on cork tiles. But, they emphasize how to make perfect "zig zag" chevrons that frankly, are tired and not what I would want in my office. So, while the world does not need another one, but I'm doing it again anyway, because I like mine better.

You will need:

• 12" x 12" Cork tiles (I bought the dark colored ones because they were about 1/4" thicker than the lighter ones)
• Masking tape (1" wide, the cheaper the better, you'll need a lot)
• Three shades of paint
• Ruler
• More time than good sense

Step 1: Mask

If you're working with 12"x12" tiles and 1" masking tape, the task is simple. You need 3 columns each 4" wide, and 12 rows of stripes, each 1" wide.

If you happen to be the type of person who hoards craft supplies, like I do, and you have a clear quilt rule around somewhere, go find it. It will make this much easier.

Measure 4" from one end of the cork square

Run a line of masking tape down the length of the tile. Repeat 4" in from the other side.

While you're at it. I would just suggest doing all 4 tiles at once. You'll get in the groove this way and can paint them all at the same time.

Next, using your clear ruler, mark one inch distances on the masking tape with a sharpie so that you have hash marks running all the way down the outside edge of each line of tape.

This will make it easy to leave the ruler off of the cork tile and know where your tape lines should end. Be sure that you're only "rising" one inch on each diagonal. The finished product should look like this.

I realized once this was done, that I could have run the tape all the way across from end to end as long as I was careful about measuring, but I only had the one ruler, so this was easier. 

Once you've done ONE of these, stop and think about the pattern that you want to create with your chevrons. If you want a continuous dark/light pattern across the corks, you need to be intentional in creating it. Stop and number the tiles (you can call the first one "2" and work from both sides of it) and line them up on your work surface (yes, my floor is my work surface). I would write the numbers on the back if I were to do this again...

If you want continuous dark/light chevrons to match the pattern across tiles, you should mask off the next tile like the one on the left. Notice how the painted segments (I'm cheating here, because I learned this the hard way) match up with the masking tape? If you're doing all of your masking at once, remember that you'll have tape on the DARK segments of the tile shown on the right here, so you'll want to create a black and white version of the pattern you're creating). But, notice how they're heading the opposite direction (positive slope instead of negative?). That is what you want. 

I strongly recommend laying out all 4 tiles in masking tape and numbering them before you start to paint... seriously....

Step 2: Paint

Since I was trying to accent with the lighter orange on these, I painted 7-8 stripes on each cork tile the light color to start. I was going for random, so I just tried my best not to be too systematic. If you have a pattern in mind, that works too. 

Next, I filled in all of the other colors, aiming for 4-5 of the dark orange and 2-3 of the silver. I found once I did this that the light needed a second coat, so I globbed a little more paint on and just made thicker coats. 

As soon as you get this far, remove the masking tape. Yes, all of it. Yes, this feels wasteful. But, if you wait for the paint to dry it will come off with the tape!

Step 3: Mask some more

Once your paint dries, pull back out your quilt measure and run a straight line of tape down each side exactly 3 inches in from the edge. This should line up perfectly with the edge of the painted section such that the painted sections are partially covered with tape. 

One very nice thing is that this part is much harder to mess up, and requires no measuring. Simply run the tape from painted section to painted section, making sure that the slope of the tape is running opposite to the slope of the painted sections. 

(If you want continuous chevrons a la 2014, you'd want to leave the sections I have tape on exposed, but the slope change should be the same)

Step 4: Paint some more

Use the same painting strategy for these inner sections as you did for the outer ones (3-4 of light, 2-3 of dark, 1-2 silver)

Step 5: Mount

These cork tiles generally come with squares of mounting tape to attach them to the wall. If not, cheap mounting tape will do the trick. Check the numbers that you marked them with (you did mark them, didn't you?) and hang them in that order to ensure that your pattern is correct. 

I failed to do so, and my pattern got messed up, but they're permanently mounted now... let this be a cautionary tale.