From beautiful murals to adventure inspiration, here’s how we created a travel-themed child’s bedroom.
Our recent house move has got us excited about DIY, interiors and furniture. My daily scrolls are now IKEA hacks, upcycling projects and the latest trends in paint colours. We moved into our new house in Windsor in January. It’s been lovely to upgrade from a two bedroom London flat to a four bedroom house.
One of the best things about our new house? It’s a blank canvas. When we arrived, pretty much all of the walls were painted off-white. Other than some wallpaper in the kitchen and some fun tiles in the utility room, there was very little personality. We couldn’t wait to add our own touches and give each room more character.
Creating a travel-themed nursery
We decided to start with our son’s bedroom. One thing I always felt sad about in our previous home, was that his room was essentially our lounge! We never made a proper nursery. We knew we’d be moving soon enough, so it always seemed like quite a grown up space for a little baby!
Now, we were ready to put things right. After asking for lots of recommendations on Instagram, I discovered Photowall. They make beautiful murals and wallpaper, in a huge range of designs. From jungles and circuses, to space and sea creatures, there are lots of beautiful options for nurseries or kids bedrooms.
We were keen for our son to grow up appreciating travel and adventure, so we couldn’t resist the ‘Mountains for Children’ mural. It features hot air balloons, mountains and stars. It’s beautiful, especially with its stylish blue and beige colour scheme.
Ordering our Photowall mural
Next, we needed to order our mural. Wallpaper designs repeat over and over, while murals are one image, divided into wallpaper strips. It was important that we measured the height and width of our wall correctly. Photowall recommend you add 6-10cm extra margin, to allow for mistakes / wonky walls!
You can drag the design on your computer to choose which section of the mural you’d like to fit your wall. Then it’s time to choose from three options of wallpaper quality:
- Premium satin
- Premium matte
- Peel and stick
We opted for the Premium matte as we prefer a matte effect. We were tempted by the peel and stick, as I’ve heard they can be really easy to put up, but they only come in a satin finish.
When you’re ready to pay, you can also add in a wallpapering set. I’d recommend including this, unless you already own all the tools. The wallpaper is supplied with enough wallpaper paste for the design.
Opening our Photowall mural
The wallpaper arrived within a week. It came as one long roll. I was amazed by the thick paper quality. It felt so premium.
The first job is to cut the roll into its separate pieces. There are clear scissor marks showing where to do this. At the top of each section it says the piece number e.g. 1/7, 3/7. This is helpful for keeping your design organised and putting the wallpaper up in the right order.
The wallpaper tools were in a separate box and contained:
- Paste brush
- Seam roller
- Paperhanging brush
- Trimming knife
- Cutting guide
- Spirit level
- Pencil
If you order a peel and stick design, you’ll have slightly different tools.
Hanging our wallpaper mural
This was our first time wallpapering! I had a feeling it might test our marriage (!) but it all went well. However, it took a long time as we were lacking confidence and experience.
The first step is to wipe the wall. It’s also recommended that you fill in any holes before starting. Thankfully, we didn’t have any to worry about, but there were two plug sockets – more on that coming up!
Then it’s recommended that you measure 45cm with a spirit level from top to bottom, to make sure you hang the first piece straight. You can mark a line with pencil.
Then it was time to paste the glue onto the wall. We found it easier to use our own paint roller for this, rather than the pasting brush included. It gave more even coverage. We used a smaller brush to paste glue on the edges and at the top and bottom of the wall.
Then it was time to put the ladder in place and hang our first piece of wallpaper. With one of us at the top and one at the bottom, we lined up the paper with our pencil marks. It’s recommended that you smooth the paper down from top to bottom. You can use your hands or the paperhanging brush. The key is to get it smoothed down, without air bubbles or creases.
This isn’t as easy at sounds! We found the paper rucked in a few places and we had to peel it off the wall and place it down again. It doesn’t stick for a long time, so you can keep adjusting it until it’s in the right place. It’s possible to do this on your own, but I’d recommend having two people involved if it’s your first time hanging wallpaper.
Once we were happy with piece one, we moved onto the second piece. We pasted the wall with glue again, then matched up the mural design with the first piece. It’s funny, you think it’s all going to match so easily, but there were a few tiny details on our design that we found it hard to match. We adjusted the paper several times before we were happy to smooth it down.
There’s a seam roller supplied, which is great for smoothing down the edges of the paper and making the joins look neat. I’d recommend doing this after each piece is hung, and then again at the end.
We continued along the wall, piece by piece, until all seven were up.
How to wallpaper around a plug socket
One the most challenging parts was to wallpaper around two plug sockets. We watched some YouTube videos on this. While you could just cut around the socket, the neatest way is to gently unscrew the socket off the wall with a screwdriver (be sure to turn the electrics off at the mains first).
Then, with the paper uncut and resting on top, cut a hole in the centre, you can make pencil marks for the edges of the socket. The key is to make an envelope shape, so you have short edges to tuck under the socket. Once the paper is hidden under the socket, screw the plug socket back on.
Cutting the wallpaper mural to size
The final part of the job was to trim the paper. We left this part right until the end as I’d heard from a few people that the paper can lift a little as it starts to dry. We used the trimming knife and cutting guide from the wallpaper tool kit. While it does have a long straight edge to trim along, it’s shorter than the width of the paper, so it’s a little tricky to get a really straight edge when you’re inexperienced. We also found the far edge tricky, as there was quite a lot of extra paper to the right. We got better as we went along!
We finished the mural by using a fine paintbrush and some paste to dab down any loose edges, and seam rollered again.
It’s probably going to sound pathetic, but it took us around five hours to complete. If we were more experienced we’d be a lot faster, but we were constantly stopping to readjust the paper to make sure the edges matched up. The two plug sockets also took a while to paper around.
Our travel-themed nursery mural
And here’s the finished design! We were so excited to put the furniture back and show our little one his new bedroom. He toddled in looking surprised and in awe. Seconds later he was pointing at all the balloons, showing us the mountains and excited to stand in his cot and take it all in.
We are so happy with how our child’s bedroom wall feature turned out. The design is so vibrant and adventurous, and we feel it’ll inspire a sense of adventure as he grows up.
Now that the mural is up, we can turn our attention to furnishings, pictures and shelving. I’m also keen to hang a hot air balloon mobile to finish off the travel-themed nursery.
While wallpapering has its challenges, we know we’d be a lot quicker next time. In fact, we already have our sights set on another room in the house. Wish us luck!
Photowall discount code
If you’re feeling inspired after reading this post, I’m happy to share a 20% Photowall discount with you. Just add the code WANDER25 at the checkout. This might expire at some point, but give it a go and hopefully it’ll work!