Tag Archives: diy wall art ideas

Teen Room Makeover: Cityscape Black and White Bedroom

Teen Bedroom Makeover City ThemeLast summer, Eden and I worked like horses to transform her bedroom from a little girl’s room into what she deemed to be more age appropriate. We sanded and primed over the old mural and painted most of the room white. We then added a bit of drama with a chalkboard wall and painted her nook red. Although the room was mostly completed last summer, Eden was living in the room during most of the final stages. As you can appreciate, it was difficult to ever find the room “photo ready” while being home to a 13 1/2 year old. Eden left for a one week school field trip last weekend and so it was my mission to give her room a very thorough cleaning, put away all of her clean laundry (in a much more efficient way with the vertical fold system) and finally take those post project photos. Although I didn’t do any purging (not my stuff to purge), I think she will be surprised and thrilled to come home to a very clean and organized room. As an extra surprise, I also added a bit of chalkboard art above the entry to the nook. Most of the other chalkboard work has been done by Eden and her friends.

Eden was very helpful throughout the process, but also very particular about what she wanted. I think the finished room looks great, but perhaps could still use a bit more art work.

This bedroom makeover was another huge project as covering the original mural took lots of work. The layers of paint created ridges that had to be sanded before we could even think of putting on a fresh coat of paint. In addition to painting the walls, there were many other small projects that led up to this transformation:

…and no doubt other little projects I can no longer recall. The total makeover was quite reasonable with paint being the most expensive item. I know we needed several gallons to complete the project. The bedding, storage boxes and a few throw cushions were purchased at Ikea. All of the pieces of furniture were items we already owned. Some were painted to fit with her new colour scheme and others were moved from other areas of the house. Eden really wanted the old book shelf from the landing and she made it look surprisingly good when she accessorized it. I thought the framed WiFi password art was a great idea for when her friends visit.

Black and white bedding
DIY custom made roman blinds
Cityscape mural in black and white
Ombre painting technique on antique vanity
The white door is the entry to her walk-in closet.
I don’t think she realizes how lucky she is to have a huge walk-in closet.
Chalkboard Art
Framed wifi password

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Teen Room Project #6: Cityscape Mural

This mural was relatively simple, I didn’t do any pencil drawings at all, but rather went along the wall placing blue painter’s tape at random heights to get a varied height for the buildings I would later create. I basically just “guesstimated” the width of the finished buildings. We then stood back and adjusted the pieces of tape to make sure it didn’t look like “stairs” or too planned. Once we were happy with the random look of the building heights, we used a level to ensure that all of our vertical and horizontal lines were perfectly straight. I used the edge of the level as a guide to place my tape strips. Once the general shape of the buildings was complete (plain rectangles), I went back and began to add a bit more variability with roof styles, inconsistent widths and the odd white window. Eden really wanted to keep the look mostly “silhouette like”, so the addition of the windows was sparse. This suited me fine because I really wasn’t sure how the tape would peel up from under the 3 coats of paint. In the end, it peeled off really easily and I was left feeling like a few more windows would have been easy to do and perhaps have added to the finished look of the cityscape.

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6 Steps to Bleed Resistant Taping:

The key to any taping is always the dry brush sealing of the edge. Never skip this step or you will get bleeding and it is the fasted way to take the “Wow!” out of your project. Always remember:

    1. Tape
    2. Seal with a relatively dry brush using the SAME colour of paint as your background. For example, I was painting a black cityscape against a white wall, so I used the exact same white as that used on the wall and sealed the edge of the tape so that no black paint could bleed through onto my white wall.
    3. Let the paint dry completely and look it over to ensure you’ve seal the entire edge along your tape.
    4. Paint with the desired colour.
    5. Let dry completely.
    6. Carefully remove the tape.