Your daughter isn’t a little girl anymore. She is growing up fast and deserves a room that reflects her teen tastes. When your daughter was 6, the yellow and white striped walls with daisies stenciled around the top in her bedroom were cute. Now that she is 16, those walls aren’t so cute anymore and need to go. Here are some tips to ensure you get good coverage.

While your first impulse might be to just slap several coats of hot pink over the stripes, that might not produce the best results. While seven layers of high-quality hot pink paint will certainly cover all the white and yellow, you might still be able to detect the lines of the stripes and stencils beneath the paint.

For better coverage, you will need to do some prep work. First up? A light sanding. Get some fine grit sandpaper and sand the edges of the stripes and stencils until smooth. This will help reduce the chance of the lines appearing later. Don’t go overboard on the sanding. You don’t want to remove too much of the surface. When you have finished with the sanding and wiped down the walls, apply a good coat of stain-blocking primer. Give the primer ample time to dry before applying the paint. Two to three light coats of paint should be enough; however, with hot pinks and reds, you may need to apply further coats to get the saturation you want.

Should you paint a wall and still see traces of the stripes and stencils underneath, you have a couple of options. You can apply a skim coat and then sand, prime and paint the walls. If the walls are textured, you can apply a new coat of texture to them. Either way, this will be a time-consuming process.

Covering stripes and stencils is not always easy. Hopefully, the sanding and priming will suffice. If not, prepare to roll up your sleeves and put in some elbow grease.