So often I have to prioritize and execute the projects/rooms that have more professional consequences or obligations (i.e. running a “business”). But with this project I stood firm, not moving it from my calendar all summer long, no matter how swamped this fall is going to be. I repeated what many a content creator has said in the past – “I will not go another winter without a floral mural on this alpaca/pig/art barn”. Water, food, shelter, floral mural. right? And it’s for no real purpose other than personal excitement, joy, experimentation, and good old-fashioned creative collaboration (why I got into this in the first place). I want my eyes to see flowers all winter and I want to spend a few days with an artist I admire, Racheal from Banyan Bridges fame, throwing colors on a barn, getting messy, and chatting about how we are both former Mormons, moms, TV hosts, and design content creators.
As a reminder, this is the art barn that is 1/2 for the alpacas/pigs and 1/2 a flex space for the kids to do art projects and for Gretchen and I to take calls after the kids get home from school. It’s old and falling apart and so charming. The outside needed a fresh coat of white paint, fine, I like white because it matches the rest of the buildings on the property. At this point I didn’t want to do a blue or red barn, I liked the idea of it looking cohesive architecturally, but boy was I feeling like I wanted to take a risk and a smaller shed/barn is the perfect place to do it. It’s just paint. If we don’t like it we can literally paint over it in one day. Brian still is like, “I have no what you are doing but go for it”.
We recently almost finished the inside (stained floor coming soon! See render above for the plan:)), so the whole project is coming along. The inside is looking very cute, so let’s get into what the outside could look like (with help).
Floral Mural Inspiration
I love this one, but it has more of an overall wallpaper pattern. I think the pattern might be too intricate for me to do and wayyyyy more time-consuming than we have, but pretty darn great.
I love this one, too – exciting, bright, graphic. There is something a little too bright and yet dark about it but the scale of the flowers and movement are really good. I should also say I want it to feel like a mix of PNW (Oregon) and Scandinavia. And I want it to not look totally odd/out of place on our property.
I LOVE this one. It is graphic but in a more Scandinavian folk art way which speaks to my soul (never been and y’all I’m going to need to go soon, this is getting ridiculous). It has symmetry but an organic movement, and multiple colors in the flowers, but not very watercolor-y.
Both the black house above and this white brick building were both done by Bailey Sullivan, an illustrator and muralist from Richmond, VA. She has a really cute, bright Scandi style. Love your work Bailey!
A few years ago Handmade Charlotte painted this mural and my goodness it’s good. It has more of a Marimekko vibe and she did it by projecting the illustration onto the barn and then tracing and painting. LOVE. Definitely go check her out.
She has a great post about “how to paint a gigantic mural” (and she’s rad – I’ve met her a few times at blogger conferences).
Mural Artist Banyan Bridges FTW
I met Racheal Jackson at the Meridian Experience blog conference in 2022, although I followed long before. She is a PNW artist/content creator/TV host and is wildly artistic. Like if you look at the two of us she wins in all the color, risk, and bravery categories. Such eye candy, joy, and irreverence. She recently redid her midcentury kitchen in Vancouver, Washington including painting her fridge in color blocks. Go look. So after we moved up here I wanted to figure out some sort of collaboration with her and we bounced many things around (Charlie's bedroom walls, the floor of the landing) but she booked the show Artfully Designed (with Natalie Papier and Frankie Zombie) now on Discovery+ so her schedule was booked up. I was finally able to lock her down and negotiate all the things we needed to, so now next week we are executing the mural.
Please note the comment on this mural she did in Austin a few months ago:
I threw it out there, DM'd her, and figured it was worth a shot. That was months ago, but here we are!
Her work is really graphic, playful, retro-inspired, with an incredible amount of energy and movement. Not exactly "Scandinavian barn" but I think that's why it's going to be so fun - it will stretch her AND me, stylistically.
So before we got started Gretch mocked up these with an iPad and stylus. We gave some inspirational images and these, but honestly, we are really open and are hiring her for her creative expertise, not mine (or I would have tried to do it myself).
At the time I told Gretch I was in between the more organic floral (above) and the more graphic Scandy folk art (below).
We sent this to Racheal yesterday, not wanting to dictate but also thinking it's fun to see the two styles on the barn (would be in color, obviously). So now it's the creative back and forth to figure out OUR floral barn mural. I'm so excited and nervous (I am a terrible artist, BTW) and love so many different styles that it's hard for me to know what will be "best" (the chronic pathology of a stylist). I'm both a Virgo and Enneagram 7 which is WILD sometimes (the "enthusiast", driven by fun) which means that I'm a stickler and very detailed about HAVING FUN (ask my team). And this mural, next week, is going to be FUN.
Opening Image Credits: Photo by Kaitlin Green | From: A Summer Project – The Barn Turned “Kids Summer Clubhouse”???
