Bold + Modern DIY Botanical Mural

A mural?! Why yes, a mural! Do you ever see something online when you’re reading blogs or watching some of your favourite home decor shows and think that it’s perfect for a space in your home? That you want to try it for yourself or that if you make this change and this change it would be totally do-able? That is how my mind works all. the. time. And that’s exactly what happened when I was browsing the Bravo TV Home + Design section of their website earlier this month.

The very last picture of the (stunning!) home tour for Chelsea Meissner that they shared was the most beautiful giant palm frond botanical mural. Spoiler alert… it looks nothing like this. It looks 1000x better. But was also done by a professional artist and I knew I’d never be able to recreate it. So I brainstormed.

Today I’m excited to partner with Bravo TV (sponsored) to share this rad DIY video with you! It was 100% inspired by their amazing Home + Design content (and I’m also totally inspired by this piece on hanging chairs and have added one to my wishlist this Christmas!).

This bold botanical mural is perfect for our space. This is a dark neglected corner in our kids playroom. We’d had a shelf here to pile toys that never get used and it had no personality (you can see all the before photos from this space in our new home tour!). Now, it’s a sweet little reading nook for them to take a minute of quiet (with four kids- it’s hard to find those moments sometimes!) and read their favourite book. I am working my way through painting the whole downstairs with this warm grey. It’s the same colour we used in the guest bedroom makeover which is right across this room and the green I used for the botanicals is the green I used in the guest bedroom for the feature wall. I love that they’re two totally different looks but the palette remains the same and gives cohesiveness for the whole space.

Since this is a kids space, going bold and a bit playful is exactly what I wanted. It’s different than our neutral main floor and best of all, they are totally in love with it. When my son saw it the evening after I’d painted it, he ran upstairs to tell daddy that mom did such a great job and that it’s so special down there. That kid just makes my day.

So before I get to the video of my painting the mural (I also share a bunch of tips that I found helpful while doing it!), I thought I’d share a bit of encouragement. I KNOW that some of you are thinking that this was a brave choice. That this was a risk. But really, what is the risk? Not liking it? Then what? Then paint over it!

We made a couple ‘bold choices’ like this in our last house- a cloud wall in our kids room and a hand painted brush stroke wall in our entry. I loved them for a while, then I didn’t. And when I didn’t… I painted over them NO PROBLEM. I did do a light sand to get rid of any raised bits and used a high quality primer and a good coverage paint but you would never know that these ‘risky’ decisions had been made. Nope- they’re gone and covered over with paint. So let me just urge you to make the decision to try something new- to take the risk on loving a space in your home. Even if that means you’ll want to change it again in a year. Because wouldn’t you rather love it than always wish it was different?

Alright… let’s get to the video! I’m sharing this over on YouTube but thought I’d put it in the post as well. Are you following me over there yet?

This was such a fun project you guys. I know this is crazy, but I actually free handed it. I think I’d love to get myself a little projector for my phone one day but in the meantime, freehand it is! I sketched out a mockup and freehanded with that beside me as an example. I started with a foam brush thinking it would give me nice clean lines but it just couldn’t hold the paint, so I switched to a much thicker brush. The thicker brush was really great for getting the outline on the wall in a hurry but I couldn’t do much detail work with it. I used the larger brush to fill in the leaves to make them nice and opaque before switching to details.

For the edges, a flat paint brush worked best. I got a fairly stiff one and that worked perfectly for outlining with nice crisp lines. It’s definitely not perfect- but I’m so happy with how it turned out!

After I painted the design most of the way, I stepped back and wasn’t totally satisfied with it. I took a photo with my iPad and sketched on top of it to see where I wanted to fill in gaps. This was SO HELPFUL for me to visualize where I was going with the design. I added an extra vine, thickened up some of the leaves to fill space, added some movement to the leaves by extending/curving them and added an extra leaf.

This took me just one afternoon (not including painting the wall grey) and it’s going to be something that adds fun to this playroom for quite a while. That sounds like a perfect DIY to me! I’m so grateful for inspiring blogs and websites like the Bravo TV Home +Design content to continue to inspire me to DIY in my home to make it my own! I’d love to hear… have you ever created a project you’ve seen on a website or blog? Share in the comments!

PS. If you haven’t already… you should probably check out the boho dream that is Chelsea Meissner’s home tour!