Wednesday

Office Update With A Photowall Mural

I'm pretty excited about today's post for a few reasons....

1)  Something was checked off the to-do list
2) Something looks pretty darn awesome with a mural from PhotoWall (but who wouldn't want to remove a 26 year old teal paisley couch from a room?)
3) The man of the house can quit using the dining room table for paperwork
4) There is a discount code at the end of this post for any readers that would like to order their own mural from PhotoWall.

Back when this house was built it was popular to have a more formal living room area if there was the space, I guess to entertain guests. You know - one room without a TV and toys. 

Fact: with six kids there was never a room that was without toys, and the people we entertained usually brought more kids and more toys.

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com
*This post is a sponsored post, all opinions are my own.*

Because the living room or "front" room as my mom called it, was seldom used I could close the bifold door of the front-living-room, and no one knew I was there. If I didn't move when kids were looking for me, I could sit in silence since they never thought to look in a room that no one used.

The days of hiding out are mostly gone, and a few years ago when the room already needed an update, Daughter #2 got married and the front-living-room became a wedding storage facility.

It was downhill from there.

Over the last ten years I got rid of the glass topped coffee and side table and the heavy drapes, with the intention of giving the heave-ho to everything and giving the room a makeover, but what happened instead is the room filled up like a storage unit!

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

Soon the room was holding a little bit of everything, even the kitchen sink.

An antique desk moved in, craft paint and stencil storage took over, furniture I intended to paint claimed a spot, and a big sink landed on the floor that was going into the kitchen of the house one of our sons was building.  Where else to keep it but the parents front-storage room right?

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

I once saw an ugly couch contest in a magazine, and the winner was the same style and had the same fabric as my 26 year old couch.  Back in the day I remember thinking I was so in style with the teal paisley print, I didn't think it was awful, but I should have questioned my judgement when a friend of my husbands stopped in and told me that was the ugliest couch he had ever seen, but that I made it look the best it could.  Years later I took comfort in knowing there were at least two of us who made that awful decision.

I think it was about the time that Al Gore invented the internet when the intention became to turn that room into an office. Though we did already have a small office, we took that room out to enlarge our mudroom with more space for the backpacks and coats from our six offspring. There was also a minimum of 16 shoes at all times and a Great Dane taking up valuable floor space.

With the walls removed we then put a small office right in the mudroom for that new invention called the computer.  The mudroom was actually a perfect location for the office because as the kids got older, teenagers came and went and I could sit at the computer or do office work and still keep an eye on the comings and goings of them and their friends.

But Brawn never adapted to the mudroom office, instead he took up shop at the dining room table where he could look out the big windows and enjoy his coffee while leisurely working on his paperwork and rolling out blueprints. He's kind of an old fashioned guy, not all that keen on technology.

The mudroom location wasn't the dedicated office area we were used too, and the silence the front living room would provide was still valuable even if I wasn't hiding from toddlers, so we kept the idea alive of turning it into an office..... for almost 20 years.


PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

20 years arrived in the blink of an eye.  The encouragement I needed to start the process of turning the front-living-room (keeping my mom alive in those words) into a dedicated office for the man of the house, was when I was contacted by PhotoWall asking if I would be interested in reviewing one of their products.

At first I was like, ummmm maybe, let me see if I have a wall for a mural. Then I narrowed it down to several walls.  Then I looked at every.single.one. of the murals on the PhotoWall website and there are THOUSANDS.  I had to see them all to know what one was perfect for my wall (and that was a hard vision for my minds eye to see through all the accumulated junk in that room).

PhotoWall has murals with flowers, and still life, and art, and nature, and people, and textures, and animals, and sports, and the list goes on.  Go look at their website yourself and see what YOU would pick!  There is really something for every style.

I was looking for something out of the ordinary, and a bit more masculine as this wasn't going to be a girly office only for myself.

Since our home is at the lake, I considered this one....

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

Although I still really really love the lake mural above, in the end it came in at the #2 spot, it didn't seem office-y enough to me and I wasn't the only one voting.  I'm keeping it in mind for an old building we own that someday will have a finished apartment looking out at the lake.

At PhotoWall you can also upload a high resolution picture of your own and have it turned into wallpaper, a print or a poster.  They also offer some customization to their own designs.

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

The Vintage Letters mural that I chose had a lot of yellow in it, and the tech department was able to tone down the yellow for my mural so it was more 'worn' looking for my room.

With the golden colors subdued it gives the letters a more aged look, which I like better, so I'm thrilled with the final product. With plenty of white trim in the rest of the house, we opted to keep this office in wood.

The mural rolls come well marked so you hang the panels in the right order.  I think it would be very hard to make a mistake and hang one in the wrong order.

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

We found the panels easy to work with, the same as any good quality wallpaper, and just like wallpapers, dark seams can be more challenging to get tight enough so they don't show, but we were able to accomplish that with minimal fuss.

Our panels arrived in two boxes with a packet of paste in each box, and I'm hoping that PhotoWall over estimates the amount of glue just to be safe so people don't run out, because we didn't use even one whole pouch of paste between two rolls of mural.

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

When you do not supervise your mural hanger as he gathers supplies, don't be surprised if your biggest Tupperware bowl and the wood handled whisk you use for pancake batter become his tools of choice for mixing wallpaper paste.

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

The included directions are clear and we followed all of them, and if you feel the need there are also online videos to watch for hanging the mural.  The whole process to hang the panels on a 10' x 14' wall took a little over 2 hours which includes all trimming and clean up.

To apply the glue to the wall we did not use a wallpaper paste brush - we decided to try a paint roller and we thought the roller worked faster and was easier to spread it around evenly while controlling the quantity of paste on the wall.

If there is a reason not to apply it that way, like the mural is going to fall off, don't tell me.

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

With each panel that was hung I started to love all the mismatched and randomly placed letters and numbers.

There are plans to update the rest of the office; new flooring, paint, lights, but we are also in the middle of a kitchen renovation, so the complete office update will have to wait till after that. 

In the office there is built in maple shelving that is currently holding glassware from the cabinets that are no longer with us from the walls that were removed in the kitchen. I also have more displaced drawers than you can shake a stick at, most of those are hanging out in my sun-room.

It's like a puzzle around here right now. The kitchen needs to be finished to move all that stuff out of the office before we can finish that room. One thing depends on another to complete tasks.  So yeah, I am thinking by 2030 we should be ready to finish the office makeover. 

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

Usable now, the office just won't be organized with the finishing touches till the glassware has a new cabinet to call home, which doesn't really matter because the focal point is that mural anyhow.  And I love it!

I won't show you photos with the dusty glassware on the shelves, but maybe I should move the alcohol in that room and like the old days close the doors to hide while the kitchen renovation is going on.

The ceilings are 10 feet high, and it really helps to have someone with a good wingspan to hang stuff.  He made it look easy while I sat and admired how it was coming together.

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

My computer chair was wheeled in from the mudroom office, and I suppose I will now have to share it with the real boss of the operation.

For the chair, I made some of the stencils and for others I used a combination of mixed and matched Old Sign Stencils - I will add that tutorial to my ongoing list of past due posts in case you want to be the boss of your office too.

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

While I love all the bright white and vibrantly colored mostly female home offices that I see, Brawn isn't a girly guy.  He appreciates all the wood textures, all the contrast, and neither of us wanted a whole house of white.

White isn't practical for a man who comes home from work wearing the construction dirt of the day.

I guess you could say the mural makes the office a bit moody.

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

It's possible we will revisit painting the woodwork in this room, but if we do it will be anything other than white.  Some other light-ish color would be fine, so we shall see.

First I have to paint the cranberry ceiling, yes you read that correct.  And the ceiling cove molding is teal.  That's gotta go as well - it was all selectively cropped out of these photos.

Then a decision on the floor. There is so much wood floor in the rest of the house I think I would like some kind of a stone floor once the carpet exits.  What do you think?

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

The desk is an antique bankers desk that could use a new coat of stain and I have a heavy piece of glass that goes on it.  I haven't decided if I'll use the glass or not, but since it's leaning on the opposite wall for now I will probably put it on the top to get it out of the way.

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

Below is an antique Morris chair sticking it's nose in at the bottom of the photo, which will get some new fabric and slid back into the office for the bankers clients who stop in to talk about a loan, but for now the old fabric matches the ceiling and the cranberry border on the rug from days long ago.

A before......

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

And the after.....

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

The PhotoWall mural makes a bold statement on this wall and seems appropriate for a man who works with wood.  It's also a nice difference from the rest of our non-bold house.

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

Two of the walls in this room have glass doors and a third has windows.  Lots of light comes in and in person the mural and room look bright but warm, even with the darker colors.

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

I will probably move one of the computers into this office, which my husband rarely uses.  He does all his computing right on his phone, which is why it was so convenient to use the dining room table for paperwork. But that was before he had this awesome wall to look at.

PhotoWall Office Mural Vintage Letters Bliss-Ranch.com

Maybe I'll hide out in there to admire the Vintage Letters mural, and keep an eye on the dusty wine glasses.  I can type him a letter and send it carrier pigeon.



Quick Links:
PhotoWall 

**PhotoWall has extended a discount to Bliss Ranch readers. 
Use code blissranch2020 for a 25% discount!!! 
Code is valid for one month, expires 3/27/20 **



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15 comments :

  1. Bliss! This is the coolest thing ever! I want one! That looks so awesome! And yeah. Front rooms. Our friends had those. The only room we ever had without toys or a th was the half bathroom lol !

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  2. I love this mural! And my mom had the blue version if that fabric on a sofa. Circa 1991. It was definitely in style then!

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  3. It’s so cool and so very you!

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  4. Oh WOW! That mural is fabulous!! The pieces you are bringing are going to look so great! I can't wait to see the space finished! How nice to get rid of a "storage room" for beautiful, functional space!

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  5. Goodness.... this is absolutely gorgeous! I can't wait for a wide open view of this! So cool they edited the mural to your desired tones too! Now that's service!

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  6. That looks SO GOOD! I love the choice.

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  7. Absolutely phenomenal makeover!! I adore the mural in this room! Way to go! I am completely floored!!

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  8. I admire how it presents so 3-dimensional.

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  9. Love it Bliss and you're so right, it's perfect for Brawn. Since I have been following you he has always done incredible things with wood.

    Love that you have an antique banker's desk too.

    Can't wait to see it complete

    Cindy

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  10. this wallpaper looks fabulous! i love how it really shows depth, at least in the photos! and that chair is gorgeous too!
    such a travesty that you'll have to wait to use the lake wallpaper until you have a view of the lake in your other building - ha!

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  11. Looks fantastic! Well done.

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  12. This looks absolutely fantastic--what an impact.

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  13. Well, I'm back. Just to stare at this beautiful wall and chair again. Do you ship your talents at all?!

    I'm featuring your project in this weekend's DIY Salvaged Junk Project 517. Thanks for (ahem) linking up!

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  14. First time reader, here from Funky Junk. I'm sorry, why do we ridicule something we once liked enough to buy? I now like M.C.M. furniture but when I was young, I really didn't like it. My aunt and uncle had an aluminum Xmas tree and it blew my little mind, not in a good way. I would buy one today in a heartbeat. I guess what bothers me is you're discounting what and who you were before and that seems a bit of a downer, to me. Someday, someone may see your wallpaper and wonder WWYT?
    I confess that I am a boho type of decorator so there might be a place for anything in my house. I had a deer skull hanging in my bathroom in the 90s (to the consturnation of my kids!) way, way before that style trend.
    Don't diss your old self, she was fine. You are just different now.

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  15. Hmmm... are you referring to what I said about the paisley couch? You want it? I was never in love with it, and it's not the first decorating item I have ever regretted, but good Lord I kept it for 26 years, I think I gave it a fair run. If from that whole article with the one paragraph about the couch you determined that I discounted what and who I was before, that's actually reading alot into that little bit about the couch. I assure you my old self and my even older self are both fine, and just as you said, different now. And I agree someone who comes after me, or maybe even me might question the vintage letter mural, but you can still have that couch if you want it.

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