Under The Sea Nursery

Several months ago, my wife and I decided to create an "Under the Sea" theme for our son-to-be's bedroom so we went searching on-line (and many other places) for ideas and came across an HGTV episode that was just what we were looking for. We contacted two High School graphic arts students and invited them over to see if they were interested in assisting. They both thought that the project was very manageable and exciting. We planned to deviate from the HGTV episode in one major way - instead of using masonite for the 3D fish we were going to have the fish painted directly on the walls. Then the process began:

Step #1 - What kind of fish do we want painted?
We had to decided what kind of foreground fish, etc. we wanted painted on the walls. This was tough because we didn't want to stifle the creativity of the students but at the same time we needed to give them direction and more importantly buy the paint! So we searched the internet and narrowed our selection to a handful of colorful fish (many found in Finding Nemo). We had to narrow the selection so that we would not have to purchase every color paint under the sun. We ended up with appx. 6 fish/scenery colors.

Step #2 - Buy the supplies
This was probably the toughest part for us because we had no concept of how much paint would be used for the background (5 colors) for a 10x12 room - we erred on the conservative side because we were trying to keep costs down. We bought quarts of the 4 colors and a gallon of the glaze. Instead of using the blues recommended by the show we matched the blues to the colors that are in the crib bedding. We matched the sand colors to the carpet and other furniture in the room. We did this to be sure that we tied the whole room together.

Then the fish/scenery colors - this was even tougher because we knew that quarts were far too large for most of the colors we needed - so after much investigation we found some 6 oz cans of latex paint at Home Depot and then one more color at Michaels.

Step #3 - We prepared the room
We taped off doors, windows, and baseboards. We laid thick paper on the floor and removed the blinds and outlet covers in the room.

Step #4 - Painting Begins
Day #1 - We all watched the HGTV episode to master the background technique. Our students proceeded to complete the background in 8 hours (ocean and sand).

Day #2 - We taped off where key pieces of furniture was going to be placed. Our students began painting the foreground. (8 hours)

Day #3 - Our students completed the foreground, did cleanup, took photos, and we were done. (8 hours)

Note: We could have allowed the foreground painting to have continued much longer, allowing the students to add more elements, but we were trying to keep costs down and felt that upon the conclusion of day 3 the room looked great and had most of the key elements we wanted.

Supplies:
Paint
Paint Brushes
Painter's Tape
Styrofoam plates (3 sections) - used to mix colors
Floor covering
Old Rags
Sponge

Lessons Learned:
- We bought too much paint. There has got to be a better way to figure out how much to purchase.

Total cost of project: (supplies and labor): Appx. $600

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Nursery
• Interior
• Design
• Room

[beatlesnali2]

Beautiful! Thanks for Sharing!

[starbabe58]

cool

[BlackUnicorn365]

i think its cute!

[katbeth2]

nice job Julia and Missy! beautiful!

[LisaGette]

Thanks so much for the ideas. I had no idea that you could have such great work done so quickly. My son has a jungle theme, but since his room is so big, there are still two large wall spaces that I'd like to enliven. I think I'll follow your example and hire a couple of art students.

[Marihani]

I like the ocean color variations and you sticking mostly to what's real, but putting that slightly cartoon-thing in there. Personally, I would have liked to have bamboo on the window and those white doors also painted. That that's me :-)