How to Paint a Mural on Your Child's Bedroom Wall

Painting a mural in your child's room can be a fun project. You'll end up with a one-of-kind decorator room and your child will feel very special, especially if you plan the mural together.

The mural can be as simple as a tree in one corner of the room with some flowers and birds scattered about, or as complex as you are willing to tackle. Look at children's books, coloring books, or mural ideas on line. Once you start looking, you'll see images and ideas everywhere.

A mural project requires some advance planning. Once you decide on a theme, choose a background color for the walls. Clean and paint the room to get ready. You'll want the mural for your child to last for a while, so start fresh.

Measure the wall where you are going to paint the mural. Keep in mind that there may be furniture along the wall, so decide if you are going to cover a whole wall or just the area above the furniture. You might want to install a chair rail around the room and paint the bottom half of the walls a different color.

Make a scale model of your wall on paper. If the wall space for the mural is 9 feet by 5 feet, use a ruler to draw a rectangle 9 inches by 5 inches on bond paper. Make a grid by drawing lines across the rectangle at every inch both vertically and horizontally. Photocopy the grid so you can experiment with your mural layout.

Gather your design ideas and resources and think about where to put them on the grid. Now is the time to decide where everything will go. Placement and proportion can all be worked out on the grid so that it looks right when you paint it on the wall.

Once you are pleased with how the design looks on the grid, you're ready to start. Lightly pencil the grid onto the wall in one foot sections with a yardstick level. Use the wall grid as a guide to pencil your drawing onto the wall from your paper grid.

Now you're ready to paint. Craft paints, acrylic artist colors and leftover latex paints will all work. When the paints are dry, you can add details with a sharpie marker. Just look at the painting process as "coloring" and have fun with it.

Erase any remaining pencil marks with an artist's gum eraser - a pencil eraser is harsh and might leave marks. Touch up any areas where you need corrections or cover-ups. Stand back and enjoy your work.

The hardest part of painting a child's mural is convincing yourself that you can do it. Why not look into doing it yourself and give your child a room to treasure.