DIY: Cherry Blossoms

July 19, 2010

Our dining room suffered the singular problem of being a Tight Fit. With the white walls and no way to hang paintings without the reasonable fear that someone would knock them from the wall or get a head full of shattered glass when they errantly and vigourously leaned back, we were stuck with soul-numbing bare white walls. Like so:

So we painted. Just a solid colour wouldn’t do (and would only be marginally better). Decoration was required. So we decided on cherry blossoms. And the deed was done.

Well, it wasn’t quite as simple as that. I’d never really painted before. Michelle had some house-painting experience apparently, but neither of us were experts. And now I know about eight things that would have been nice to know before we started on the project. Like that masking off an area is not enough and that you absolutely need to caulk it as well. And that house paint isn’t meant for detail work such as petals. Ah well, next time.

We used Valspar paint, which I was pretty uniformly impressed with. The red colour is Posh Red, the blossoms are Polar White (which has a touch of yellow in it), and the branches are in Fried Earth. Just in case you wish to duplicate. Also, I’d recommend against the larger blossoms. They were among the first I painted. They are awkward, out-of-place, and I regret them thoroughly.

This is a Photoshop job where I combined three photos to demo what the mural would look like had there been no corner to make the photos look awkward. (Click to see a more magnificently large version.)