Murals Transform Bland Spaces in a School

Murals are a segment of my business that I truly enjoy creating.  While their popularity in residential spaces comes and goes like wallpaper, they're always the right fit for challenging spaces in kid oriented commercial and residential space.  I recently completed several new murals for a day school.  The bland off white walls lent little to the imagination and were cluttered with stapled and taped outdated posters, art for the sake of taking up space and store bought pictures which lent nothing to the space.

To date, I've painted five murals within the school.  I've varied each in style, composition and theme.  Hopefully they look executed by different artists, as I want the variety to be that akin to children's books.  No two are the same.

Here are three of the five murals.  I finally got around to taking photos with a real camera instead of the cell phone pictures that are oh so convenient.  I'll post the other two soon.

If you're curious, from my observations, murals are becoming popular in kids rooms once again.  Everyone has tried everything possible with decals, vinyl letters, chevron stripes and posters and the boredom is creating a resurgence in mural popularity.  So break out your paints, its time to lead the trend and not follow!

In the children's storytime stair area I created this magical forest with larger than life flora and fauna.  I rendered this mural in an animation cell style.  I wanted it to look like they're sitting within an animated movie.

To soften the hard inside corner I bridged it with a hand painted cutout of
a luna moth.  The frog is the first thing you see as you come down the hallway.  The kids love him.  He's about 2.5 feet tall.

The indoor play structure area was converted into a farm theme.  The maple wooden needed to be somewhat camouflaged.  I thought it would blend nicely with hay bales.  The owner's office door has been converted into a swinging barn door.

A faux tree trunk was added to the play structure to allow for the painting of a tree canopy on the mural sky.  Sadly, you can't see it in this picture.

In a second staired area, where the students watch videos and share, a storybook style forest was created.  Its soft calming colors lends itself to the low light room.

I sculpted a reliefed beehive, with bees to add a bit of whimsy to the space. 

Genius Boy's Bedroom - The Theory of Decorativity

Sitting criss-crossed legged on Kade's floor, his mother and I stare at the room, back at each other and then down to my tablet.  What if, what about this, what about that and whoa, what about those is asked?  I'm rapidly sketching away at some ideas to cover the vastness of Kade's interests.  We're making headway with ideas but how do we tie them together.  Finally, the word to summarize him comes to mind.   It's genius, rather...he's a genius.

6 year old Kade has an inquisitive mind.  Within his quaintly small room are blooming amaryllis bulbs, crystals, plant seeds, disassembled toy pieces, works of personal art and an array of THINGS that I'm sure juggled around in his pockets before finding their rightful place in his room.  He loves Star Wars, reading, cooking and finding answers to his burning questions about biology, chemistry, dinosaurs and magic tricks.

My quest was to tie everything together in a room design fit for a genius.

His loft bed was Kade's dream piece of furniture.  It's one of those light maple kit units with the primary colored panels to play fort in.  Not exactly what I'd like to work with.  As a matter of fact, its monstrous footprint prevented the petite room from having a functioning arrangement.  So, it needed to go away or be reinvented.  Kade's mom raised her eyebrow inquiring "what do you mean, reinvented?"

Reconfiguring the loft bed made room for a retro steel desk and chair.

As a sucker for an artistic challenge, I proposed rebuilding Kade's loft bed by adding a facade of faux reclaimed wood, rethinking the crayon colored canvas, replacing it with burlap and reorienting the slide and re-facing it with galvanized sheet metal for an old school look.  Changing the bright maple required some sanding and re-finishing with a wood toned lacquer.  That's a lot of re's...whew.  

Before and After alteration of Kade's loft bed and slide.

A collage of mounted magazine clippings, science themed art, a "K" for Kade and a piece from my superhero wall art collection speak to the science theme.

The slide being refaced in galvanized sheet metal gives it a retro, old school feel.

His white walled room had a niche with a built in dresser and a sad little shelve.  With a few sawcuts and some trim I altered his floor standing bookcase and transformed it into an upper cabinet, above the set of drawers.  This made the new niche the perfect home for a fish tank.  

Vintage flash cards act as a decorative border.

Now that his bookcase became an upper cabinet we freed up room for a vintage steel desk and chair.  Topping it of with some painted shelving, the corner became the perfect spot to house organizational vintage locker bins, reclaimed tin can storage and glass mason jars to display his collections.  A little nod to his love of science, Star Wars and classical music was brought together by plaster casts of Einstein, Chopin and a faux plaster bust of Darth Vader, I created from a halloween mask.  A hollowed out and spray painted dinosaur became the perfect container for an aloe plant, which Kade remarked is used for burns.

A Darth Vader halloween mask altered into a faux classic bust finds a home next
to plaster Einstein and Chopin.

I've been on a hexagon craze lately and with its sciencey shape, I found it to be the perfect solution to store some of his fabulous finds.  The hex cube unit, I built features decoupaged pages from an old dictionary, where key words like nucleic acid can be found.  Kade quickly filled it with his precious rock collection.

Created in my studio, the unassembled hexagon shelve pieces looked like a
colorful game of Jenga.

Applying a sheet metal veneer over the awkward looking
colonial raised panel bifold doors turned them into modern magnet boards.

The family's home is built in a modern style which was compromised by the old fashioned raised panel bifold doors the builder had installed.  My laminating a sheet metal covering over the colonial looking bi-folds created a fun, modern looking usable magnetic and dry erase board surface for Kade. 

The addition of a vintage school map to the angular entrance of his room creates a focal point, a tribute to geography and acts as a reminder that a long, long time ago Navigation was best learned on a really big map with a sharp pointy stick.

I sent Kade's mom shopping for a retro Edison style light fixture.  What's more genius than Edison?  She was pleased to find out she could have one custom built at a local architectural salvage house.  The glowing filaments of the Edison bulbs look terrific.

Kade's feathers, melted crayon sculptures, pint size biospheres and his scientific notes are all safe, sound and organized in his genius boy room.  It's now a room that reflects his intellectual passions and feeds this playful young boy's needs for whimsy and fun.

Kade and his mom couldn't be happier.  The petite room is more user friendly, it has personality and it's a one-of-a-kind built just for him.  Kade's mom whispers...."he can also organize his collections", which was code words for clean his room.  Sorry Kade, even Einstein had to keep his room clean.

I'm no scientist, but I think the theory of decorativity comes into play here- for every aesthetic action there's an unequaled enthusiastic reaction!

Enjoy!

Aaron

Pictures of the Genius Boy Room are posted on my Pinterest page, if you are a pinning machine.

Will the Avenger's Movie Leave Moms in Decorating Distress?

With this summer's cinema dominance by Superhero movies like the Avengers, Batman and Spiderman, there's surely going to be a lot of little boys begging for a room redo.  If you'd like help fleeing, faster than a speeding bullet, from the super tacky lycra costume colors and long for something more sophisticated, let me rescue you.  My friends at Rosenberry Rooms asked me to dream up some inspiration for a Super Room even moms will approve of.  Read my guest post on their RosenberryBlog.

If your little superhero needs a room and you have no idea where to start I offer e-consults and will travel to help create a super room.  Visit my website for details.