Please! Help Me Choose a Bedroom Mural!

This is an important announcement. If you are drinking anything other than clear water, you need to put it down until you are finished reading.

 

Oh dear.

I seriously fell down the proverbial rabbit hole on Monday.

After months of poring over every mural on the Mural Source website, I settled on one that’s very pretty. It’s the Fenimore in the Sky colorway. It’s one of the newer ones in the Ariel Okin Collection. If you don’t know who Ariel Okin is after reading this, you’ll begin to see her name everywhere.

She looks all of 18, but she’s been married for 5 years and has two kids, so I reckon she’s at least 21. ;] However, she’s an up-and-coming superstar in the interior design industry, which is appropriate as she’s exceedingly talented.

 

Some of you may have seen this drop-dead exquisite mural recently in Architectural Digest.

 

This is not the entire image. After years of being hassled and threatened by copyright trolls, I must be very careful. Anyway, I was all set to do this one last week.

I love it, but I don’t think it’s quite right.

 

That’s when I decided, based on my choice of the Plantasia for the bathroom, that the best color would be the soft, muted gray-blue with a touch of green.

 

The problem is that the images of the whole murals on The Mural Source website are very tiny files, and difficult to see the design.  I’m sure it’s to thwart thieves from stealing Paul Montgomery’s beautiful artwork.

For designers, there is an online catalog and they can be enlarged; not super huge, but a little better. The only problem is that none of Ariel’s murals are there. They are only two years old and the online catalog, in magazine form, was done before that.

However, The Mural Source has a gorgeous Instagram page, and Ariel Okin’s Instagram is sublime. Between the two, and also googling Fenimore mural—Sky, I came up with some gorgeous images of the pale gray-blue mural with delicate white flowers and small birds.

 

Here’s a pic I found on Ariel’s Insta showing her collection with beautiful designer fabrics.

 

Fenimore Sky is in the bottom right corner.

The image on the website is a bit more saturated.

How Ariel’s collection came to be.

 

A few years ago, she needed some custom murals for clients.

 

• She wanted more muted colors.

Check.

• And, she wanted the tea paper effect, as they did everywhere before the 20th century. (Remember the Dufour murals?)

HUGE check!

 

My problem is I’m like Ariel because I want something from murals A, B, C, and D, and then I’ll have my perfect mural.

 

The obvious choice would be to have Paul create a hand-painted beauty just for me.

That’s not in the budget. Besides, he promised me a freebie becaull of the great press I’ve given them over the years. I’m happy to do so. I only write about brands I truly love. I’m not into traditional collabs because they want one to jump through ridiculous hoops, and I don’t have time for that. So, it’s better if it happens organically.

 

I was all set to order, and I began my email to Paul Montgomery on Monday.

 

We last corresponded in February 2022!

 

Hi Paul,

It’s Laurel Bern, the Anastasia bedroom mural blogger formerly from New York and now living in Boston.

I hope all’s well with you.

Well, I can’t believe it’s been over two years since discussed doing another mural! It’s been a long road but I expect the renovation to be finished sometime in June. It began last June.

Okay, I hope your offer still stands, because I’m dying to do another one of your murals again. However, instead of the entry, I’d love to put another Chinoiserie mural in the bedroom…

 

It was at this point that I thought I would dig up an old pic of the bedroom to show Paul where his mural would be going and how lovely the bay is.

 

So, I found this image from before I moved to the apartment in December 2020.

 

And I added a lovely Fenimore Sky panel between the door and window.

 

Oh dear. See what I mean about the low res image?

Well, I’ll just grab another mural in similar colors from 1stdibs, as they have a few of the murals in high resolution.

Other sources where you can see some beautiful Mural Source images are Caitlin Wilson (The names are changed, but it’s The Mural Source’s products), The Well Appointed House, and Mintwood Home.

Okay, I took a bit of the Imperial Garden Mist.

 

 

I realize the image is far clearer, and this is a gorgeous mural! The problem is that this isn’t what Imperial Garden Mist looks like as I manipulated the colors.

 

It looks like this, and below in this lovely dining room.

Paul is a superb colorist. No one is finer at putting together combinations of stunning color schemes.

However, I’m not a purple person. I wouldn’t mind a little if it were a more muted purple, but this is too much. Plus, I would prefer the background to have more gray-green in it. That is possible. They can manipulate the background to a certain extent. I don’t know about any of the other colors.

In addition, though this is one of their loveliest patterns, it doesn’t have the tea paper effect I adore.

 

However, murals do.

 

One is Maysong, and my favorite is Maysong Spring.

I’ve featured it several times on the blog.

 

 

 

I got a sample of this a few weeks ago.

Yes, it’s stunning!

However, it’s one of their top sellers, and while I love it, I don’t want quite that much color for the bedroom mural.

But, there’s one more mural.

Belva.

Belva has the tea paper effect and a lovely design. It also comes in three colorways.

 

This is a lovely piece, but the colors are too clear for me. I would do this for a client who wants a more pure blue.

 

Okay, I’ve scrolled through the Mural Source’s Insta several times.

 

One day I found Belva. Years ago they were making screens and antiqued the wallpaper; in this case, they used Belva.

 

 

I manipulated this one to look more like the colors I’d like. However, I adore the antiquing they did here.

The only thing is, I don’t want to impose on them to do this extra work. They are kind enough to give me a freebie, and that’s enough.

 

Still, that didn’t stop me from spending hours making renderings of the proposed bedroom mural.

 

That was on the 18th.

Today is the 19th.

So, let’s take a look at what I created.

Yes, I know it looks like a living room. But here’s the thing: This mural isn’t just here. It would be on all four walls.

I found some other images of this mural and both were bathrooms.

 

Lizzie Pogue Interiors

This is such a pretty paper. However, if there’s such a thing, it might be a little too pretty.

Above is Imperial Garden Mist.

This is also a manipulated color. It’s lovely but not quite right. It looks better with Paul’s colors.

Okay, one more bedroom mural possibility.

That’s kind of stunning. It’s the Belva, with toned-down colors and antiquing.

Hower, I’m chicken to ask them to do this. I could antique the paper, but this is an intense desaturation of all of the colors. Therefore, unless they’d like to add something to their line (and no, I have no aspirations to have a collection), it would be imposing.

 

Today, I went downstairs to see a new paint color from the Williamsburg Collection in the overly bright bathroom.

 

It’s a very muted medium gray blue with some green in it, but not as much as the night train.

 

I didn’t realize this until I googled it later, but this is a famous paint color!

 

The fantastic Heather Chadduck used it in her living room at the historic Nelson Galt House, the centerpiece of Williamsburg. She did the sickest renovation, which you can see in this glorious video made by Quintessence. I swiped this off Heather’s Instagram and color-corrected it as it looks quite purple on her page, and I know Heather did not do a purple rug.

See what I mean? Below is the wall color

And see how awesome it looks with the Plantasia?

 

The only problem is that Apollo Blue doesn’t look great with the Fenimore. It’s not the color; it’s the depth.

It’s like there’s this hunky “wait til you see the bathroom” on one end of the embrasure hall.

 

And by comparison, on the other end of the hall is the nursery.

 

 

Younger than springtime, am I…

Sorry. ;] ;] ;] That is the strangest-looking baby Picmonkey ever created.

Well, they always said I’d grow into my face– eventually.

 

The real baby me, with my darling Mommy, summer of 1957, Chicago, IL.

 

I’m not saying that the Fenimore paper is babyish, even though every nursery on this side of the Atlantic has one of these murals adorning the walls over the crib.

 

What I’m saying is that it’s not quite right, although I do love it. I ordered a sample, so it’s possible I might change my mind.

I’m sold on everything else, just not the Fenimore mural.

No, I need something not quite as sweet that can hold its own against the deeper colors in the entry and bathroom. Yet, still look appropriate for a bedroom. I’d like to keep the hall creamy white. So, that means a healthy dose of white in the wallpaper would be great.

 

Laurel, this sounds too complicated. Do you have to do a bedroom mural?

 

Everything’s complicated and no, I don’t have to do anything, but I do have to do a mural in the bedroom. ;] I mean, the panorama is right there in the natural bay. It’s begggggggggging for a mural!

Alas, I took yet another stab at it, thinking about the Apollo Blue and the Plantasia, and then the right mural for the bedroom jumped out at me.  Well, two of them did, but one of them has the edge. However, you’ll have to wait to see which one because it’s way past my bedtime of 8:00 PM, so I need to grab my bottle and blanky and lay me down to sleep.

By the way, the design for the railing is 100% complete. Jerry Kenneally has been awesome to work with. I think it will be ready in a few weeks.

xo,

 

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