Where the Wild Things Are Nursery

This is a picture instructable to show the progress of my sons nursery that I decorated with murals from Maurice Sendak's book "Where the Wild Things Are". It was my favorite book as a kid and wanted to share that with my little guy. I started on the nursery in late January and it took a total of 2 1/2 months to finish the painting. With help from my Mother, Father, Brother, Mother-In-Law and two friends ( Jennifer and Helena) we got everything finished. I was about 7 months pregnant with my son and did a lot of the work at night and on weekends since I was still working up until 4 days before he was born.

I hope this inspires others to do their own nurseries as well. Remember your imagination is your only limit.

Some of the things we used in this nursery project are:

• Step ladders and short ladders
• various sized brushers for deatail and larger coverage
• paint trays and paint pallets
• paint rollers for large areas
• painters tape (1" and 2")
• paint stirrers
• paint can openers
• paint (various colors)
• rulers and tape measures
• reference images
• cups for paint and water for rinsing
• paper towels
• drop cloths
• hammer to reseal paint cans
• radio and ipod for tunes while you paint (optional)
• lots of help and time

I don't really have a picture of all of the supplies, but you get the idea.

Once the room was cleared out (Lots of thanks to my husband he was afraid to paint and mess things up so volunteered for the grunt work) I picked out a few images to put on the four walls of the room. I did alter some of the pictures, so they are close, but not exact images from the book. My friend Jennifer helped me sketch out the outlines of the drawing in chalk so we could get the right proportions for each mural. We only did one full wall which was around the window that you would see more of and only went up 3 feet from the floor on the other three walls since furniture would block most of the bottom area. Luckily the room was painted a light grey, so this was easy to paint over. We taped off the trim pieces and the window with painters tape 1 inch and 2 inches wide and got drop cloths to protect the carpet. I had 2 small ladders and a kitchen step ladder too reach the higher areas.


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Next my husband and I made a trip to Lowes to get paint. I didn't want a flat latex paint so we chose one with a satin finish that would be easy to clean made by Valspar that has a built in primer as well to allow for fewer coats and more coverage. I brought my book with me to match up colors. I knew I would be mixing some colors, so I could get just a few to work with. 2 shades of green, brown, yellow, white, peach, pink, red, light blue and black. I had a bucket of blue at home to use as well. I used an assortment of brushes from fine line brushes for detail work at the end to large brushes and rollers for the base coats and larger areas.

You can see the buckets of paint in the mirror.

*****SAFETY NOTE*****
BE SURE TO VENTALATE THE ROOM FOR FUMES. ALSO IF YOU ARE PREGNANT, MAKE SURE YOU GET THE OK FROM YOUR DOCTOR TO DO ANY PAINTING OR ACTIVITY. 

We started off with the big areas to start painting and give guidelines. think of it kind of like painting an animation cell. We worked with base colors and added layers over them then finished with black detail lines. These areas we stated with were the sky, tree trunks, leaves and grass areas. We were able to use the rollers and large brushes on thes areas.

Sky was first since it was the lightes color. Next we started to add the brown for tree trunks and green for grass and leaves.

This step took a lot of time, but I painted the leaves in one at a time and then we started on the palm trees and flowers.

Lordy did it take a lot of time!!!!!!!!

Next we started on some of the characters with white,pink and yellow areas.

The sea was a little more tricky and I had to mix several colors to get the shades and look li needed.

Next we stated to outline and the trees and leaves the begain the color on the characters and outline them as well.

Lastly we added a brown border to the half wall murals and touched up and drips and smudges.

With the painting done we could clean up and get the carpet vaccumed and the furniture moved in. As we got gifts at out baby showers they were added to the room.

The blinds we got from Lowes, the tall dresser and crib from direct buy, the rocking chair was a gift. the bookcase and short dresser we had me downs, and the nightstand was a dresser made by my husbands father when he was little. The box selves are finds from the thrift store. I have also made a lamp and a curtain, but they are not in the pictures.

Thanks to letting me share. It was a labor of love and I know I will cry when my little guy wants to paint over it.