How to paint an affordable mountain wall mural
This mountain wall mural is an easy DIY to transform your space
How to paint a mountain wall mural
Introduction
This mountain wall mural was the star of the budget bedroom makeover I did back in the pandemic. Like many, I was suffering from cabin fever after staring at the same walls all day every day for what seemed like forever. This was exacerbated by the fact that our bedroom, which doubled up as a home office some days, was very dull and uninspiring.
I decided to revamp the room completely and, after creating some mood boards, designed a calm, relaxing and romantic sanctuary with a mountain wall mural or should that be murals as they were panoramic. To complete the bedroom makeover, I decided to use dark wood furniture and a cabin bed to create the feeling of being on an exciting holiday in a far-flung destination… lockdown escapism at its finest (especially considering that our usual family holiday is a week in Centre Parcs!).
As you can see from the tatty old floorboards in the image above, what I really needed to complete the look was some beautiful engineered wood flooring, but the budget for this bedroom makeover wouldn’t extend that far, so it’s on the wishlist! When the budget is tight you have to get creative and reuse, revamp and rotate your home decor but I actually really enjoy this aspect of home styling and specialise in money-saving home decor hacks.
As with all painting projects, check out these painting hacks before you start.
How to paint a mountain wall mural.
Before you start. you’ll need to have a plan in your mind about the size and shape of the mountains, you’ll need to decide the best positioning on the wall and the starting and finishing height. Are you going to make the mural a colour drench effect and effectively paint over any furniture on the wall like radiators or light switches? How many colours do you want to use? Are you going to aim for realistic natural colours or are you going for a colourful or ombrè effect?
That might seem like a lot of questions! But the more time and effort you put into planning, the better the results will be and you’ll be glad you made the effort. After researching mountain wall mural ideas, I plumped for realistic-looking mountains in a colour gradient. I had decided on the (Farrow and Ball) colours that I wanted beforehand and knew I wanted to start with the dark lead grey with blue undertones, ‘Downpipe’ (DCO26 in the Decorating Centre Online colour-match service), through muted dusky pink ‘Sulking Room Pink’ (DCO295) ending in the palest grey pink ‘Peignoir’ (DCO286) so I chose those three shades from The Decorating Centre Online and then blended the gradient ‘in-between’ shades myself.
You will need
I recommend gathering your materials before you start painting so you have everything to hand. See below for the tools and materials you’ll need for this painting DIY. Sponge
Bowl of warm water
Cloth or old towel Pencil
Paintbrushes
Paint in various colours (depending on your design)
Dust sheets Step ladder (if going high up the walls)
Paint stirrer
Paint tin opener
Method to paint a mountain wall mural
1. Clean the walls
Before you start any painting project, it pays to clean the surface you are painting and this goes for walls too. I used to always use a sugar soap spray, but I’m trying to avoid chemicals as much as possible in favour of more sustainable options that are kinder to the environment, so I now opt for a bowl of warm water and a sponge. If the walls are very greasy, then you can use a baking soda solution or even diluted white vinegar, but I’ve ditched the neon yellow spray bottle! You don’t want to get the walls too wet, just wipe them over with a damp cloth or sponge and then dry them with a cloth or old towel.
2. Prep the walls
Once the walls are clean and dry, I recommend spending a few minutes checking the condition of the surface of the walls in case there are any imperfections that you need to make good. You don’t want your mountain wall mural to be spoilt by holes left behind from a rawl plug being removed for example. If you find any imperfections, get them fixed then you are ready for the fun but. If you have plasterboard walls, check out my post about how to repair plasterboard walls.
3. Plot the design on the wall
Plotting out the design first helps you keep everything in proportion and gives you a chance to make changes and be 100% happy before any actual paint touches the wall. I plotted out the layers of mountains by hand marking the walls with chalk as this gives a clear line but is easy to wipe off, you could use a pencil if you prefer.
4. Paint the first layer
Then I set about painting the first, darkest layer using a small paintbrush. You could start from the top and work down, but because I’d plotted the exact lines for the mountains I was happy to start at the bottom and work up. Once I’d done the very bottom (darkest) layer I mixed the next layer up by adding some white to lighten it.
5. Mix the gradient shades
Then I added some of the dusky pink to the dark grey paint and hand-painted some mountains in that hue before adding more of the dusky pink mixed with a little of the pale grey pink and so on until I reached the top half of the wall where I predominantly used the pale grey pink to create the ombre effect.
You can add as many layers as you like each one can be a different colour by mixing different ratios of the paints you picked.
6. Layer up your mountain wall mural
I added some detail to the mountains to create depth by shading and layering up slightly different hues so it didn’t look flat. You can add touches of white to the mountain tops and just play around with the shapes to try and make the mountains look more 3-dimensional.
7. Styling the bedroom makeover
After the mountain wall mural was complete, I painted the lower half of the walls which had panelling that I’d fitted shortly before and finally painted the door and architrave in pale grey/pink to continue the soft relaxed feel.
I bought some cheap wooden pegs from eBay and added them to the panelling at the foot of the bed to add a bit of interest and hanging pegs are great for storage/displaying decorative items from shopping your home.
The bed was a real bargain which I found after much searching on the internet and was vital to create that indulgent feeling of escapism and I really wanted to bold black frame to contrast with the soft romantic pinks and greys.
This little makeover was cost-effective and easy to do and I’m pleased with the results. See below for some ‘after’ pics and a ‘before’ from when we bought the house a few years ago (for dramatic effect!).
This room is really tiny, otherwise, I would have tried to squeeze in an IKEA hack or two! If you aren’t quite ready to complete a full bedroom makeover on a budget but want some beautiful bedroom styling tips then look no further!
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Don’t forget to check out some of my other DIY blog posts and visit my shopping page for lots of great value and super stylish homeware curated into handy shopping guides.
