While we were waiting for our first adoption referral, I busied myself with getting the spare room ready for our daughter. I’m not sure how it all started, but I decided to decorate in a jungle theme. Since I love to draw and had done a few murals for people, I saw lots of potential in the plain white walls. The whole room was my canvas.

One night as I was deciding on what animals to draw, it occurred to me that I could use the whole wall space from top to bottom. The next thought I had was, why stop at only one wall? I shared my ideas with my husband who looked really leery.

A friend and I started drawing with pencil. The whole room was sketched out in pencil first. It took several weeks. Then, we started going over our pencil marks with black markers. We soon learned that black markers work temporarily, but paint pens works the best!

After a month of drawing, we finally got to start painting. So far, we hadn’t spent any money on the room and it looked like a giant coloring book. I rummaged through my paint supplies, and chose colors according to what I already had. Eventually, I had to buy some more paints. I maybe spent $10 in paints. I got really good at mixing paint and creating new colors, especially for the leaves.

The painting process took about four months, and when all the characters and scenery was painted the white space just wouldn’t do. So I started the tedious process of filling in all white space with blue sky. This was the hardest part because there was so much space, and it wasn’t as much fun as painting the creatures. The last month of the six month process meant going back over every line with the paint pen again. I have to admit that I enlisted my family in helping paint “blue” and retrace with paint pens. Memorial Day 2004 we finished the room, and I always remember this project each year around that that time.

The final product is amazing. It took 6 months total from start to finish. It is a very stately room that gets plenty of attention from guests sleeping over.

To complete the room, I used an old apple tree branch from our tree to screw to the wall for a 3D effect. I found some realistic bananas to hang from the ceiling, and used stuffed animals to fit in with the painted animals for more interest and fun. While I didn’t keep track of the costs of designing this room, I know I didn’t spend much. I did add a bamboo shade to the window, so I’d guess $25 total?