Okay, So You Really Need That Mural...

The ceiling looks great, but below
that is all construction zone.

     If you are like me, you like themes.  I don't mean themes as in, "oh I did my kid's room in a Harry Potter theme by buying the bedroom set at the local Mart store,"theme.  I mean theme as in, "all the world is a stage and I want to be on it," theme.  I want to lay back and look up at the enchanted ceiling of Hogwarts surrounded by the opulence of a New Orleans French Quarter mansion, not soak in a tub.  Therefore a mural is needed.  My Harry Potter meets NOLA FQ mansion bath sounds scary, but I'm loving it every step of the way.  Well except for having to paint the night sky over Hogwarts on the ceiling.  Looking up and holding your arms up for days at a time ain't easy let me tell ya.

     The other day I found this company, muralsyourway.com, six months after the bath mural has been finished of course.  I could have photographed the night sky and had one made.  Oh well, I am actually happier with what I painted than with anything I could have photographed.  Anyways, wouldn't this be cool over the ceiling of your tub?

What if you did one of those faucets that
come out of the ceiling on this one?  It could look like it was raining.

I would hang a chandelier from the center of this sucker and go all neoclassical on that bath, not that I'm a neoclassical girl or anything, but wow if I were...  Then again, imagine the possibilities, you, your camera, photoshop and this mural company working together to create the most ridiculous murals ever!  I know J wouldn't go for it, but wouldn't it be cool if I did a mural with a picture of the spare room right after Katrina, all moldy, muddy, full of  ruined tumbled about furniture and put it up in the spare room?!  Old room in the new room; cool.  Or, you could take a picture of yourself eating at the table with John F. Kennedy or enlarge and photoshop your cat so that she's seated at the other end of the table and put it on the wall of the dining room.  This is the kind of mural that excites me.  Let's get rid of those tired, meaningless, and overdone Tuscan windows slapped in the middle of a wall America and put your imagination to work!

Do You Really Need That Mural?

Not awesome mural.  Just slapped on the
 wall screaming Olive Garden Restaurant.

    I was prompted to do this rant thanks to the reception hall's ugly mural at that wedding this past weekend.

     I know people pay a lot for painted murals, and with a talented artist they are beautiful, but I've seen so many done so badly that I cringe when I hear the word, "mural."  I'm not a mural fan from the stand point of slapping up that ocean view or that Tuscan countryside out a faux window and having someone tell me it's their theme.  A picture is not a theme.  Either make the mural count for something or get rid of it.  In other words, take it further people!  Tuscans don't sit in their living rooms decorated al la Rooms To Go with murals of the "countryside" on their walls.  They have beautiful rustic beams in their ceilings, wonderful old world tile, awesome rustic plaster walls.  In comparison a 3'x5' mural just seems a bit silly.

Awesome mural.
It makes a statement.

     Choose to be the Tuscan rather than the patron in an Olive Garden restaurant.  Stretch your imagination and DIY skills a bit further and beat the heck out of some 2x4s, stain them and nail them to your ceiling joists over the drywall, trowel some smooth wall texture on those walls for heaven's sake.  Got some wood working skills?  Make some cornices to "hold" those "beams" up.  Frame out that silly little mural to look like a window or get rid of it all together, after all you are now IN a Tuscan room and not sitting in a traditional ranch with a mural on the wall.

     The cost to be in a Tuscan room?  Regular old 2x4s are under $3 apiece, stain, under $25, texture under $50,  pale creamy paint for the walls under $60.  So essentially for about $200, you could have Tuscany instead of looking at a little $200 mural that means nothing to the room.  A woman with a set of tools who knows how to use them is a dangerous thing.  Now imagine what you could do if you wanted a Spanish Plaza and had a tile saw.  Awesome.