Monday, May 30, 2011

While the City Sleeps ...

 We've lived in our house for about eight years. Slowly but surely we've been working on making each room our own. The last easy* room to work on was the very small guest room. Not only is the room small, the previous paint was hideous - some weird shade of blue-ish white. Here's a before picture:
   

After much deliberation, we decided on a comic book/superhero theme. I looked around online and couldn't find any bedding/wall art/accessories that fit my vision. We couldn't settle on one particular superhero. We couldn't even decide between DC and Marvel. So I went with a general comic book feel. Since husband was set on using our old full-sized bed in the room (instead of a twin) there really wasn't room to have a headboard. One morning, the idea of doing a comic book panel mural on one wall just hit. I'm not good at drawing things - especially on large scale, so at first I wasn't thrilled. Then, I realized that a panel featuring a city skyline wouldn't be too hard. I could sketch it on some graph paper and use my trusty ruler and level to transfer the design to the walls. Here's the original sketch:


The next step was paint. We chose a dark blue for the walls - drastically different from the earthy tones in the rest of house:


Then, the mural wall was prepped and painted Ultra-White:


Next up - transferring the design from the paper to the wall:


I used contact paper to make a mask for the moon and mixed the ultra-white and the blue to get various shades of sky:


Then it was time to prep and paint the buildings a rich black color:


Finally, it was time to paint in the windows. I thought about painting the windows white to keep a simpler color scheme, but I'm happy I ended up with the yellow:



For the finishing touches, I added brushed nickel outlet covers, curtain rod and hooks, and my husband installed a new brushed nickel light fixture. Also added black curtains and new bedding:




The room isn't totally finished - the four altered puzzles will be hung on the wall opposite the bed and I'm going to paint two 18x18 canvases to hang next to the window. I'm also going to screen print and sew three throw pillows for the bed. We also need some kind of shelving to display some collectibles (there was a painting fail yesterday trying to paint an old white bookshelf black). But, the room is ready for guests! And, here's a link to the Craftster post.

*meaning not the kitchen, bathroom or laundry room!

4 comments:

  1. This is the best room ever! I love that mural- it's so gorgeous. Awesome job!

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  2. Really cool. One question, looks like two blue tones in the sky. How on earth did you achieve that cool look?

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  3. Thank you sooooo much... I'm about to do your design on my son's wall tonight :D

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