How to add a mural to a wall for instant style and impact to your room. Adding a focal point in the room with a mural is an easy way to jazz up a room with color and texture.
This post is sponsored by Photowall. They sent me a free mural to try in my home. Affiliate links used in this post.
Sometimes we need a do over, don’t we? I didn’t intend to do over my office/guest space/playroom this soon, but it was perfect timing to add a mural to this space. Let’s look at the before and after.
You all watched as I added peel and stick wallpaper to this room as well as a trundle bed and even though I loved the wallpaper, it never had the look and impact I wanted after I put it up. I thought black and white would look good in here, but I think I figured out why it doesn’t work that well. The wallpaper is very cool undertones and the walls and drapes are warm undertones, so it just doesn’t look that great.
Luckily the peel and stick wallpaper does peel right off and left my walls perfectly smooth with no residue and ready for a new treatment. I was so excited to get an email from a new to me company, Photowall and they offered to send me a mural to try out. When I started looking through their murals, it was overwhelming. There were so many to choose from. I knew I wanted something with a little tropical feel in here. With the rattan armoire and the boldly patterned and colors in the drapes, a pretty tropical mural would be perfect, so I searched until I found the one I thought would be it and I found it!
The really neat thing about Photowall murals is that they custom size the mural to your wall. All you have to do is measure the wall in height and width in inches and add an extra couple of inches to the measurement and put it in their calculator. It measures out the mural in strips with everything matched up just perfectly. My wall took 8 strips of wallpaper.
Daisy is always ready to help her mama out with a project.
They sent glue to use on my wall and this method is paste the wall wallpaper, just like the brick wallpaper we put up recently. I didn’t need the whole package and could have just mixed 1/2 of it. It mixes easily with water.
The wallpaper mural comes in a roll and it’s measured out in strips with lines where you cut the mural apart. I went ahead and cut all my strips and had them ready to hang.
Affiliate link from Photowall.
This mural is called Tropical Plateau and it also comes in a Sepia tone. The brighter one is perfect for my room.
This shot is from the website and you can see all the birds and colors. I wish more of it could show, but that’s the way it is in a smaller room, the big armoire hides a lot of the scene.
The cut lines on the wallpaper made the process so easy to do. I got it done in about 4 hours.
What You Will Need for This Project:
- Scissors
- A tray for glue along with a foam roller and paintbrush for small area.
- A sponge and water
- A smoothing tool for the wallpaper
- Cutting tool for cutting excess paper at the ceiling and baseboard
TIP:
One tip I’ll share with you if you do this project is to start the first piece (it starts on the left side of the wall with #1) about 1″ above the top of your wall or crown molding. I cut on the line and started that first strip right under the crown molding. But as walls tend to do, they might not be perfectly straight so as I moved across the wall, there was a slight gap under the crown molding as all 8 strips of paper went up. You have to match the pattern so the top of the paper may shift ever so slightly moving along the wall. If I had let my paper overlap at least 1″ on the crown molding, then I could have avoided having a slight 1/4″ gap under the crown for about 3/4 of the way across the wall. When I was finished, I had a strip of blue paper left and I just cut little strips to fill in that little gap and no one will ever know it, but that’s a tip for you. Overlap and trim the top of the paper and there’s plenty on the bottom to overlap the baseboards. I hope that makes sense. They allow extra on each strip based on the measurements you give them.
After 4 hours of work, I had a completely different look in this room. I really really love the outcome of this mural and it looks great in here. I’m sure a lot of people didn’t like the black and white and I get that, but this one really is perfect I think.
I’m so much happier with it too!
This room is an office/guest room/playroom space and not perfectly styled for anyone but us, but I love how it feels in here. The kids really enjoy this room when they come over, the grandkids and my great nieces.
As you can see, they’ve left some stuffed animals behind for when they visit again.
It’s such a cute room and everyone smiles when they go in here.
The only unfortunate thing about the wallpaper is that it has several colorful birds and 2 of the more colorful ones are behind the armoire. These two aren’t as bright but they are right above the pink chair, so at least they do show.
There are pretty flowers on the left of the armoire near the bottom. It’s a gorgeous mural!
I have added a lot of furniture in this small room and we did try moving it all around again to see if the daybed would work on that wall. It didn’t. When I shared this on Instagram in progress, I had so many people asking if I tried the bed on the wall and the armoire when the bed is. Yes, we went to the trouble of moving it all and it just didn’t work. If I want to keep the pink chair in here and I do, it has to stay this way, so we moved it all back in the original configuration.
I would love for all the birds to show, but the backdrop behind the armoire is pretty to me too.
It’s a fun little retreat space and I’ve even gone in here sometimes to read and it’s great. If I ever can’t sleep, which is thankfully rare, this is where I go.
I moved the quilt rack off that wall to show the mural more. These are extra blankets for the kids to use and some of them my mom made. I’ve had this lamp for a long time and I added it back in the room and it looks great with the colors.
I wasn’t ready to get rid of the Ballard’s pink chair, it looks so cute in here, so it stays.
It looks so good in here against the drapes and mural.
A small bamboo bookcase holds books and toys. I still love having this little desk space in front of the window.
It’s a compact room, but I managed to get all I wanted to in here.
View coming in the door.
So that’s a do over and I’m so happy with. I’m really glad I got the chance to do it again and make a better choice in here this time around. I hope you love it too! If you’re looking for a mural, definitely check out Photowall. I couldn’t be happier with how this turned out and it was really easy to do.
Rhoda, this room looks like a vacation!
Hi,
I LOVE the mural!
You talk so much about moving this or that….
What about simply changing the color of the rest of the walls to harmonize with the mural and furnishings instead? When I looked at your after photos with fresh eyes, the only thing hitting me in the face was the stark wall color. How about using that pale blue about a foot or so down from the top of the mural? What do you think?
Hi Cat, I painted the walls light blue originally and then changed them to Alabaster when I put up the first wallpaper (as seen in that wallpaper strip that’s down). I really don’t want to change them again, so I’ll probably leave the white. Plus I love how light and airy it feels with the creamy white walls.
Beautiful Rho,
As always you did a beautiful job on your room. I love the curtains, the mural, the bed and please NEVER get rid of that pink chair. You hard work paid off.
Judy
Hi Rhoda this is so, so pretty – I could read all day in that pink chair in this setting along with a tropical drink or 3 – just lovely! I saw this on IG w a person who wallpapered a bathroom and had the same issue with the cranes on the paper being hidden. They just cut the cranes from extra wallpaper and applied them where they wanted them to show – i thought it was a great idea!
Hi Kym, that is a good idea and I thought about that but with a mural there is no extra paper like that so I have no birds to cut out. I might could find some somewhere that look similar and glue them where I want them.
I wasn’t sure how the mural would look in the room, but I like it! I kind of like the armoire on the mural wall because it mutes the mural just a bit which maybe keeps the mural from overpowering the room.
I love the mural! I would have to consider moving things around a bit in order to see it better though…if it were me. Have a wonderful day!
Say Tropical! Say FUN! I love the room: pink chair, drapes, mural and all.
Rhoda, I think your new mural is beautiful and looks great in that room! I agree with you that it suits the other colors in the room better than the previous wallpaper. As someone else mentioned, it has a tropical feel. How relaxing it must be to sit and read your book underneath the palm trees!
Great new direction of this fun room for the girls. Maybe put the bed on the mural wall so you can see the birds and more of the ‘scenery’ and the pink flowers that match that cute chair and ottoman. The armoire looks giant and seems to hide the view of the mural. (You are so fortunate to have the love and adoration of those great nieces; and they are fortunate to have a beautiful space to enjoy on their visits.)
So, your whole house and home are incredible. Thanks so much for sharing about how sometimes it is soooo hard to figure out what to do with a room , space, or the entire house, lol.
You are at a difficult crossroads in your life- you need to have your own space, totally yours. I am right there with you! But there are needs, to be spaces for family, like sharing tv, games, play etc. And somewhere for the little ones to sleep over, I am longing for that, they are across the US from me here in upstate NY and it won’t happen often (sob). And it is a shame to hide that incredible wall covering…you chose it for a lot of reasons, but then chose to cover it up again?
I have been doing this over and over myself. I think it means we are in need of a major change soon. We are so much stronger and smarter than we know ourselves.
Hi, Susan, I know many can’t understand why I covered up the mural in the middle with the big armoire. Well, it’s a matter of multi-tasking this room and it fits our needs in life now. A place for my desk, daybed for sleeping over with trundle and a big armoire to hold my printer and toys for the little ones. So it really doesn’t keep me awake because part of the mural is covered up. I can see it’s back there and it’s lovely to look at.
I think the armoire looks perfect against the mural wall. The trees and the coloring is what I would have bought it for anyway:0)
I am saving the idea for a mural BUT I am frightened to try wallpaper again after the past troubles peeling it off. I hear from others that they still had trouble with the peel n stick paper? Is there a special trick? We do have fairly new drywall so there are no bumps or old issues. I’d love to do something in a nook in our bedroom. A book reading nook is what I’d love to have in the space. Daisy is precious..thanks for sharing her.
Thank you, Lori! I love the room too. Don’t let fear of wallpaper removal scare you off doing it. I have done so many areas of our home with wallpaper and I think it will be many years before I get tired of it. The peel & stick in here came off really easy. A few areas didn’t come off in one piece but overall it came right off with no residue. But honestly working with peel & stick is more challenging than pasted, I think.
Beautiful!