Younger Daughter’s Room

My youngest was so patient in waiting for her turn to play designer.  She so desperately wanted to help with her big sister’s and big brother’s rooms, but had to wait for her own.  She had her paint chips narrowed down to about twenty colors (I wonder where she gets that from) and finally had to decide.  All along she had wanted a green room.  Not some soft soothing green, but a full on show-your-Irish-roots kind of green.  I was not as excited about the color as she was.  But, then after seeing her big sister’s room done in teal she changed her mind and wanted the same color.  I liked that idea even less.  Be your own girl, Little Bit! Do your own thing! But, no, she was now set on teal.  After starting all over in her paint chip collection and the narrowing down challenge she settled on a light blue.  Close enough to Sister’s, but still her own color.

Once the paint was purchased there was no holding her back.  We had to get to painting immediately! Now it was Mommy’s turn to be patient.  Working with a 5 year old wielding a paint roller is rather nerve wracking.  Not to mention the tension caused by little feet stepping in paint.  “Mommy! I stepped in paint.” “Stop walking around!”

Seeing the bear mural in her bother’s room led her to believe that she needed a mural, too.  On to Pinterest we went.  We looked at rooms painted with simple flowers, butterflies, and big trees. But then she saw a princess castle on a hill.  That’s what she wanted, but with few changes.  She wanted a cottage instead… and mountains in the back… with snow on them.  I came up with a sketch of what it would roughly look like.  She gave the okay I and drew it on her wall before that wall got painted.  The off white was a better background to paint the mural on top of than blue so we just painted around where it was going to be.

On to the scary part.  Now like I said before I am just an amateur.  I have no idea what I’m doing or if what I do next will ruin the whole project.  One thing I have going for me is that I can visualize end results pretty well and can usually come close to what I’m thinking.

I started with the mountains.  They got painted gray with a few patches of very thin purple.  I remembered my 7th grade music teacher, Mr Tackett, was a painter.  He gave a quick lesson one day on the chalk board of how to do mountains with snow.  So I gave it a try with white paint and it worked.  I can’t remember a single thing about any music lessons, but I remembered the five minute chalk drawing from 24 years ago!

Next came a tree line.  I started with a grayed down green and slowly made it a more true evergreen color as I painted the trees that were nearer.  That tree line took me all afternoon.  I painted each tree individually.  Major lesson learned there.  Just put some ideas of trees in the background and paint the trees in the front.  You’d think that would be obvious, but sometimes I’m a bit too into my projects to see the easy way.

The grass was added then the cottage was next.  All the walls in our house have the orange peel texture on them.  I hate it, but it came in handy while doing the mottled plaster and stone look I was going for.  A few layers of various tans for the house, grays for the stones, browns for the wood and a blue for the windows and it was starting to take shape.

The details are where it really comes to life and changes it from basic shapes to a homey cottage.  Add in a few shutters, window boxes, shadows, highlights, and flowers and there you have it, a cottage on a hill!

The rest of the wall looked pretty bare so I took some artistic liberty and added my kiddos and our pets into it.  This part was not pre approved by the designer, but she liked it so I was not in trouble.  I painted my oldest with a handful of wildflowers, Little Bit holding a kite and her brother pointing to how high she got it while giving her encouragement.  The oldest with the flowers is the only really accurate portrayal of the three. In real life the boy would have taken the kite and started running around the yard laughing as Little Bit screamed after him.  But in my dream world…

Here it is all done.  While the Brother’s bear mural only took one day to complete, this one took me two weeks!  I had plans for more trees around the house, but I was so done with painting that I called it good and put my toys away.

One more picture, just because I really like how the detail shows up in it.

So, who’s up to getting their paint clothes on and personalizing a wall in their house with a mural?  I know you can do it, even if you didn’t take 7th grade music class 😉