Last we left the suspenseful Tuscan room transformation, I had painted his room and ceiling and now the saga continues… seriously, his room is almost done and I’m super excited about that!
I mounted Tuscan’s soccer mural on wood panels:
We also pulled one of the bunk beds that we have reserved for guests from the basement to use in his room until he needs more storage then we’ll get him a storage bed. For now, his clothes are still little, so we’ll wait.
(Hi Bandit!)
My husband also re-mounted Tuscan’s red shelves that we got from Pottery Barn Kids ages ago. Those store all of Tuscan’s trophies and ribbons from soccer and swimming.
Back to the mural… I wanted the mural to pop from the wall a little to give it some dimension so I mounted it on plywood, then I mounted the plywood on 4×4 blocks.
First, I ordered a mural that had a sticky backing (like Fatheads do) so that I could just stick the mural to my wood. Then I figured out what 3 equally sized pieces of the mural would be if I were to cut it into thirds horizontally. With those measurements, I went to Lowe’s and bought 11/18 inch plywood that I had one of the associates cut into 3 equal pieces matching my dimensions. I had leftover pieces of plywood that I used for wooden blocks (more on that later).
I cut my mural into thirds using an Exacto knife and a straight edge. I taped these 3 pieces to the wall where I wanted them to go. I then got out my stud finder and marked all the studs with pieces of tape, measuring to make sure that they were in the right spots (16″ on center from each other).
I cut eighteen 4×4 blocks out of the leftover wood that I had and made blocks out of them by drilling holes through 2 at a time. I used 2 blocks stacked on top of each other since only one layer of wood didn’t make the mural stand out from the wall enough.
I drilled three blocks for every panel where I marked my studs. The blocks didn’t have to perfectly line up with each other since the panels would cover them, but I did need each of them to hit the studs which they all do.
After that, I mounted the first piece of panel on the blocks making sure to countersink the screws so that they didn’t pop up through the mural.
With all three panels mounted, I just stuck the pre-cut mural pieces to the wood and used a squeegee that my husband had on hand to apply his iPhone screen protector. That thing worked great for getting out any air bubbles.
And viola! I was done.
The only problem that I encountered is that the wood grain of the wood shows through the mural since the mural fabric is so thin.
Tuscan says that he likes the wood grain showing since it looks like clouds and it’s only on the lighter portions of the sky, so I’m going to leave it, but if you want to avoid that problem, paint the wood panels white first.
I still need to go back and use a wood rasp to get rid of any wood that is still showing around the perimeter of the mural but that should take a few minutes tops. It will give the panels a more finished edge since some of the mural pieces are off by a hair. You can avoid that with careful cutting!
I’ve ordered Tuscan a navy rug and roman shades as well as some new bedding, a beanbag, and some shelves for his books. More on this room soon!
