Wall Mural Painting - DIY With These Simple Tips

A painted mural can be a fabulously eye-catching feature, indoors or outdoors - and it isn't just for experienced artists. The possibilities are almost endless, whether you are looking for something to brighten up a child's room or to create a visual focus in an elegant living room. With a bit of planning and practice, and with the help of the various aids on the market, painting an attractive mural is within reach for most of us.

Wall Mural Painting - DIY With These Simple Tips

Wall Mural Painting - DIY With These Simple Tips

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Wall Mural Painting - DIY With These Simple Tips

Wall Mural Painting - DIY With These Simple Tips

Ideas for Murals

Whatever you like to see can become a mural! Landscapes are a popular choice for covering large areas of wall. It could be an enchanted forest for a child's room or a peaceful vista in a living room. Trompe l'oeil paintings (paintings that deceive the eye into thinking that the image is real) are also popular - for example, faux picture windows that seem to open onto a rural scene, a seascape or even a cityscape.

Murals can also be images painted onto walls that serve the same purpose as framed pictures. Motifs that compleMent your décor and architecture are another idea. Tuscan murals, with grape and foliage motifs, provide an attractive finishing touch to a room and are popular for their old-world charm.

Floral designs always look decorative. A geometric or abstract mural can add pizzazz and style to a contemporary room. For the workplace, including offices and schools, appropriate imagery can banish that institutional look, adding color and warmth.

Before You Start

Prepare your surface well. It needs to be clean and grease-free. Fill holes and cracks with putty. It may not matter if the surface is a bit rough, depending on what effect you want to achieve. Apply a good quality undercoat or primer.

Paints

Water-based acrylic paints are a good choice for interior murals. You may need emulsion paint for exteriors. Options for outdoor murals include hard-wearing, waterproof paints with a built-in 'sunscreen' to prevent fading. A good quality clear sealant completes the Job.

Applying Your Design

If you are creating a scene such as a landscape, you will typically start by covering your surface with the background color(s) and building up your image in layers. Your final layer will be the fine detail. Once you have a background coat you can sketch out your design. Few of us can do this freehand! Work from a picture, which you can then scale up, marking the design contours onto your wall. (There is Computer software that can help you do this.)

For the less experienced, stencils are the perfect solution. You will find an extraordinary range of designs that even the novice decorator can use to achieve effective results (or you could make your own stencils). You can also buy kits that let you transfer a design onto the wall. All you have to do then is apply the paint - not unlike painting by numbers.

As a stylish touch inside or outside the home, or even as a community project, using paint and creating faux finishes can be fun as well as enhancing your living environMent.

Wall Mural Painting - DIY With These Simple Tips

Kids' Chairs Go Great With Kids' Tables

What better way to personalize a kid's bedroom than buying him or her, their own kids chAirs? Children love to pattern themselves after their parents, so why not allow them to design his or her own kid's bedroom. With all the wonderful décor and a child's vivid imagination, the options are limitless.

For the sport's enthusiast boy, why not make his room the hot spot for all the neighborhood boys. Find out his favorite sport and surround his room with that motif. Perhaps this particular boy loves all sports and does not have just one favorite he wants to go with. That is also ok, just incorporate multiple sports décor, and top the room off with three different kid's chAirs. There could be the catcher mitt plush chAir and the basketball and soccer ball upholstered chairs with ottomans.

The little girl in one's life always wants to be mommy and daddy's little princess. Make this kid's bedroom a magical fairytale. Incorporate a wall mural of a castle with a mote. Make her window look like a window in a tower where the little girl can imagine she is looking out over her subjects. Have her bed be a four-post princess canopy bed. Among other décor top the room off with her own throne, a plush purple and pink princess crown, or a regal princess form kids chair.

Toddlers love animals so why not make these kids bedrooms look like a petting zoo. Decorate the door as if it is the door to a barn. Paint the walls with life-size animal murals and hang curtains with clouds on them so the toddlers feel as if he or she is in the barn looking out. Insert a round play rug with different barn animals and their names on it so the toddler's learn as he or she plays. Finish the kid's bedroom off with different kids chairs designed in the shape of different animals.

Older kids are starting to form their own taste in things including how he or she wants their bedrooms to look. Being a preteen, he or she may decorate the bedroom with whatever he or she may be into at the time whether it is posters, mirrors, or just pictures of themselves and friends. Therefore, he or she wants a more casual comfort zone for them and his or her friends to hang out. Try adding several box kids' chairs with ottomans. These chairs are square in style but made of the same materials and stuffing as the beanbag chairs however, easier to get out of when one is ready to stand up.

The perfect kid's bedroom atTire for preteen and teenagers is a virtual world. Most all kids are video game enthusiasts. So, why not make his or her bedroom look like a mini arcade? Decorate the walls with his or her favorite gaming décor. Have a flat screen TV on the wall with shelves on either side baring multiple games of his or her choice. Add several physical games in various corners of the room, such as pinball, a mini hoops game, or a speed pitch. Do not forget the kid's chairs. For the preteens, add a two-seat child's theater recliners with storage or for the teens single gaming chairs.

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