DIY birch tree forest mural

So we have this big empty, unfinished basement.

There is one huge wall, spanning 30 feet long. It's concrete, lightly white washed, and super gross. 

So we decided to do something about it! 

We loved how this project turned out and documented the process so you can make your own magical birch tree forest mural, too! It would also look great on a small, accent wall or in two-tone colors. 

First, we hit up Home Depot for some Frog Tape, brushes, rollers, masks (to protect little cryings), and paint. We scored a great gray all-in-one primer and paint by Behr in the "oops section." Only $15 for a gallon of high-quality paint! 

We used the Frog Tape to create the edges of the trees, leaving the white-washed wall as the actual tree, using all those imperfections and holes in the concrete to our advantage. We also put tape up where we wanted branches. 

With an exacto knife, we cut alongside down the edge of each tree, letting our hand wave slightly, and pulling off the excess tape. Because trees obviously aren't exactly straight up and down, this helped it look a little more realistic. Then, Chas did an amazing job of using the exacto knife to cut out the shape of each branch from the tape. 

With all the tape in place, we ran our hands along the edges, pressing firmly into the concrete to help really seal the deal. 

(Click here for pictures of just the wall and tape up.)

Next came the paint!

This is what the wall looked like after applying just one coat of our paint. 

We didn't really know what to expect with a dirty, unprimed concrete surface but other than taking extra care to fill in all the little random holes, there was no problem! 

The best part was peeling off all the tape. This was when we could really start to see our vision come together and it actually start to look like something!

The final step was adding the details to all the trees.

With a small paint brush, I carefully painted all the little horizontal line and knot hole details. 

The whole wall looks like this: 

(That's 18 trees total, folks.)

And, of course, we had to include this on one of the trees. 

(Chas' idea.)

I can't tell you how much fun we had working on this mural. 

It felt so invigorating and refreshing to have a big, creative project in process that we could both work on together. So, so much more fulfilling than watching a movie together or even, dare I say...eating cheeseburgers and onion rings at Hires?! 

Yup. I went there. 

We love how it turned out. Really love. 

Now, instead of a basement, we "go down to the forest" to do our laundry. 

And sometimes (every day since it's been finished), we go down just to stand and look in amazement at what we accomplished together. We're pretty proud of ourselves. 

Eventually, we'll get a huge rug to put down there and create a big play room area for little cryings. 

But for now, it's just our magical forest...

and occasionally ping-pong happens in the forest as well.