Once we found out we were having a girl, I immediately started designing the room. Kids rooms are some of the most fun to design and find art for because of the playful and whimsical touches you can add. I soon decided that I was just mural-obsessed enough to need to add one to my home—and the perfect spot would be Effie’s sweet room. As I was perusing for inspiration, I found promotional images from the movie Emma. It was just what I had been looking for.
The next step was to take those images and project them on to the wall. There are many ways to create a mural, but I find this to be the easiest one. The Emma
images were meant to be inspiration and we (Tina and myself) did not want to create an exact replica so we projected portions of the image around the room. From there, we lightly penciled in the images to give us a design to work from.
Next, Tina and I divided and conquered specific areas and items in the mural. (That beautiful bird was all Tina, for example). Using minimal colors, just paint samples that I had chosen as my color palette at the local Lowe’s, we selected the colors for different portions of the mural—highlights and lowlights for the branches and leaves, and fun accents like the berries.
If you decide to do something like this for your own home, my biggest piece of advice is don’t worry about perfection. We played, we made “mistakes”, and we created a mural that is based off a movie still but also unique thanks to our own creativity. Also, music and a creative partner in crime (mine is almost always Tina with these sorts of projects!) helps too.
Additionally you can see some other peaks around Effie’s room. Art is always a big part to any room design in my home, no surprise there, and I included several prints that I that I had picked up through the years. One of the most special pieces in the entire room is the Besame piece from
Angela Chrusciaki Blehm. It was such a wonderful surprise in honor of Effie’s birth. I still smile any time I am in her room and see that piece.
I can’t recommend
adding a mural
to your home enough. They’re not just for big buildings anymore.
