23 design ideas for painting a mural in your kid’s bedroom
An empty wall in your kid’s bedroom can be very tempting, but also a little bit intimidating. Maybe you have already decided that you want to paint a mural but are not sure how to go about it. I’d like to share a few tips in terms of the design, and also give you a list of 23 ideas that might inspire you.
Doodle mural
Doodle murals are great because you can fit a lot of small details into them to make them personal. For example, for the mural I made for my girls, I included little icons about our family, such as my daughter A swinging, the new bed we just put together for her, or my two kids standing up and holding hands (we painted this when my younger one was less than a year old and very far from walking yet). Hopes and dreams have a tendency of finding their way onto a mural and this is exactly what I love about this medium.
As an other example, here is a mural we painted for baby B when he was just about to be born. We added a bicycle, a penguin, mom and dad, a rocket, uplifting to things that the parents could weave into their bedtime stories for months and years to come.
If you want to go this route, I recommend thinking about a shape that you’d like to fill. It can be a rectangle, triangle, circle, anything you like, but a shape will give you structure and some boundaries which are always helpful when it comes to designing. Once you have your guiding shape, think about all the little doodles that remind you of your life with your child, or how you imagine it to be in the future. Draw down your icons one next to another, but don’t worry about arranging them just yet, first we are just trying to get all the ideas in one place. Once you have everything, take a look at your guiding shape again, and fill it with the little doodles. And voilà, there is your doodle mural design!
Mural painting based on a theme
Decorating your kid’s bedroom based on a theme can be just as must fun as painting little doodles. For this, step number one is of course to come up with a theme (see some ideas below). There are no rules for how to go about this, so feel free to get inspired by nature, books, films, sports, anything you’d like. Here are a few examples of some themed mural designs.
One extra idea: a neighbourhood map
Neither doodles nor a theme, a neighbourhood map can be a great design for decorating the wall in your kids bedroom. For this, you can use Google Maps to redraw the streets around where you live and then once you have your basic map, you can add the things that are the most meaningful to you, such as your home, the park, the school/nursery where your kids go, your friends’ houses if they live nearby, a favourite store, bakery, ice cream place, anything you like. It could even be placed that are only meaningful to you (such as that one DOG that always barks or the CORNER where you always play hide and seek with your kids). Again, this is a great opportunity to involve your kids in the design by asking them what places are important to them in your neighbourhood.
Finally, here are 23 design ideas for your next mural:
Doodles: musical instruments, science, travel, bugs, school, food, summer, bicycles, inventions, vehicles, construction, sports
Themes: rick-climbing, dinosaurs, ocean life, wild animals, in the zoo, space adventure, volcanoes, jungle, magical garden, busytown (à la Richard Scarry), city life
+1: neighbourhood map
If you want to paint a mural but still have questions, I wrote this free guide you can download that might give you some additional ideas. Happy painting!
