Kids Room Mural
I made mention before about doing an iridescent wall mural in the kids’ room like this:
Something that looks plain white in the day but at night you could flip on a black light and it would glow. I got back some great feedback from a reader saying I should be careful about having a black light in the kids’ room so it doesn’t hurt their eyes… It’s something I hadn’t gotten far enough along to consider. I could hide a black light behind a soffit or something but James and I had another idea. Why not just have it be a plain ole mural, visible during the day instead of hiding all the hard work AND add glow in the dark paint to the windows/lights so that it was a night scene at night! I think that would look awesome!
I really want to do some sort of ‘village’, those are the pictures that I liked as a kid, you can make up stories about the things that live in the houses. Growing up it was a good way to let my mind wonder and drift off to sleep. I think it would look really cool too. I suppose some of this depends on the sex of #2 here, we won’t know that for a few more weeks but I am getting some ideas together. Hazel loves fairies. I know it’s weird, sh’es too young to really know anything about anything but seriously the only show she actually sits and watches is Tinkerbell. She’s had an interest that way for several months already (I got a girly girl, no idea where she got that from, it wasn’t me!). That sent me on the path to a forest. Then I went to tree houses because they would be awesome! So… if you were to paint a mural in a couple of kids’ rooms, what direction would you lean? Do you know of a high quality glow in the dark paint that lasts for a while and WORKS?
I think my number one would be an interconnected tree-house scene, I am afraid it will make things look dark but I think I can paint it in a way that it won’t look dreary…
I love Margaret Tarrant’s fairy artwork. I have a collection of it on Pinterest, and when my daughter was young, I had framed prints of her artwork hanging on her walls, and she loved them. A wall mural inspired by her work, or Molly Brett’s would be wonderful, and could be gender-neutral. I’d mix in lots of forest animals too–maybe some that looked like the Calico Critters animal families. I have never known a child who didn’t love the Calico Critters toys!
I like the forest animals! That’s great! Thank you!
love the treehouse idea…..check this out
http://lynstone.com/portfolio/fairy-tree-house
Awesome! That’s ‘brighter’ I like that!
This illustration is absolutely adorable! You can visualize a whole village of fairies living in tree houses, a mushroom house under a rose bush, a cobblestone street with tiny fairy stores for bakery, clothing, gardening etc.
My daughter was not only a girly girl, but she was vary much the princes. So you don’t need advice on what to paint. You have it nailed:)
However my son loved dinosaurs, robots, and sharks. Over the years I’ve noticed all boys love Dino’s and robots. My son is a bit older now, and still loves sharks. I’d say ask other moms and fined out what there kids loved when they were tiny. But your Muriel is sure to be a hit. I love your blog, thanks:)
I bought some Krylon glowz (in a can not a spray can) which I have never opened and used. Can’t even remember what I had planned for it but it’s low odor and came highly recommended by the hardware store where i bought it. Now i might have to go tinker with it and see how it works.
as far as I can tell it’s only available in a spray can now.
First of all, congratulations on your new addition to your family and your house hehe:)
Fairy houses or Elf houses!! They are the most colorful, intriguing, enchanting and detailed. The more detail the better..it occupies the mind and feeds more curiosity. If you end up with a forest, I think that including cute, enchanted animals would be nice. The underwater scenes are dreamy and nice for the night time but I think for a small space it should be more colorful and vibrant than dreary.
I agree, I like the whimsy! totally agree with you, I was not sold on the underwater, I’m just going to scratch that off the list!
I found a glaze with teeny tiny glow in the dark stars – it dries clear, and you can’t really see the stars in daylight – but once the light goes out – it’s magical – I got it at Walmart – but I bet you could find it online…. The best part is falling asleep in that room – so soothing, and way cool. Was kinda stinky until it dried, so had to really air it out well – but after that, it was just great.
So I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure the first photo of the “tree houses” is Lothlorien from Lord of the Rings. I’m not sure if you’re into LOTR but I’m a HUGE fan so that would be really cool.
I did the whole white picket fence and flowers halfway up, around my daughter’s room and stenciled butterflies and ladybugs. the butterflies were done in glo-paint so the night light gave them life at night. That’s if you have another girl. I painted stars on the ceiling with glo-paint also. It looked like an ordinary white ceiling in the daytime, but they twinkled at night.
I love this idea. My husband and I actually considered doing a forest theme in our oldest son’s room. We thought about making a realistic 3-D tree coming out of the wall, with limbs and and leaves, with a sky painted on the ceiling and using glow-in-the-dark stars to make a night scene.
Keeping the glow-in-the-dark painting light such as twinkling stars etc, is a good idea. Murals containing animals/people that are too large, colors too strong etc. can be scary to little ones. As an interior designer, I have had customers who had me come in to fix scenes they painted in their babies/toddler rooms where the child was terrified and would not sleep or play in their own room. Just a thought to keep in mind.
Hello Macy!
I am procrastinating on some work, so I thought I’d put together a concept board of Hot Air Balloon Wall Designs for your Nursery. Check it out here! 🙂 https://www.dropbox.com/s/6p4cvdb8ir13rc7/HazelandBabyWallDesigns.pdf?dl=0
Oh hay! I just saw this! I LOVE the butterfly’s and the city-scape, that would be awesome! I feel like I would definitely need the Eiffel tower in there! 🙂 Great ideas!