I know I say this a lot, but this is one of my favorite projects in a long, LONG time! I think it's because I tried something that was a little bit out of my comfort zone. I was pretty positive I would love it, but you never really know until it's done. 

Our entryway is quite large and gets great natural light. This is how it's looked for the past couple of years, after I cleaned up a dresser from our son's room and brought it down here: 

Shortly after we moved in, I installed that simple molding using super inexpensive luan from the hardware store. It's a classic touch for not a lot of money. 

Over the past year or so, I've been dreaming of adding more drama in this space. One day a Facebook ad hooked me with a wallpaper mural I just could not get out of my head. 

It was a serene lakeside watercolor with colors I've used throughout our home...a mix of blue, green and brown tones: 

This mural design is called Peaceful Lake from a company called Wallism. 

You know if you interact with an ad on Facebook in the slightest bit, they'll just keep showing it to you over and over. Finally, I took a screenshot and saved it away till I was ready to tackle this project. 

When the time came months later, I punched in the dimensions of our wall (I wanted to fill the entire foyer wall with this wallpaper), and I about choked when the price came up. 

The total was $1000, and that didn't include shipping. Well that was an absolute NOPE, so I started searching online for "lake and tree mural" or "watercolor lake mural" -- anything I could think of that would yield a similar result. 

But nothing was quite the same. I couldn't find anything I loved as much. I eventually came up with an idea...what if I just made the original mural smaller, and then framed it out with some molding? It would look like a giant artwork. 

So that's what I did! First, I had to prep for the new wallpaper by removing some of the trim I installed years ago: 

Because I had touched up the paint along the sides after installation, there was dried paint build up I needed to scrape off: 

I also gave everything a light sanding (and cleaning) before starting the wallpaper. 

This wallpaper comes in both pasted and peel and stick, but the latter was more expensive so I went with the pasted version. It arrives all in one roll, and is printed in sections in the exact size you order. 

Each panel is numbered one of whatever, in the order you need to hang them from left to right. Mine was seven sections in total, and they tell you where to cut each one: 

Note that if you purchase a mural like this, each panel is printed flip flopped -- so panel one started with the top at the beginning of the roll, but the next panel would start with the bottom. They label everything well, but I about had a heart attack at the beginning, thinking I had installed the first one upside down. 

Installing pasted wallpaper may be a bit easier than peel and stick, because you can very easily pull it off and reapply the paste as needed. I shared a tutorial on how I hung pasted wallpaper in a hallway years ago. 

I still had plenty of the wallpaper paste I used for that project. You just apply it to the wall like paint with a roller: 

Don't worry about getting paste all over, as it wipes off easily with a wet rag. You want to be sure to cover the walls liberally and use a flat wallpaper smoothing tool during installation to get all of the bubbles out. (That tool is a must!)

I trimmed the excess off the top and bottom with a razor when I was done, but I could have left it considering I was framing the whole thing with molding. 

The textured wallpaper is absolutely stunning and is fantastic quality: 

I decided to make the whole wall a little more cohesive and added two long, vertical picture frame molding boxes on each side as well: 

Absolutely classic -- I never tire of this simple and pretty trim work! 

This whole project turned out even better than I had imagined: 

The wood dresser looks so lovely with the brown in the mural:

I kept the decor on the dresser simple as well. At first we went back and forth on adding the mirror back, I'll show you a photo with it in a bit. 

I kept the existing "frame" of the luan strips around the wall, which turned out to be a pretty detail. It frames out the project nicely: 

But cutting down the size of the mural, I saved 75 percent on this beauty! It was still a splurge, but it turns out my timing was perfect. It was on sale so I paid even less than I had budgeted. 

I think it was one million percent worth it! What a beautiful statement this has become in our home. The mural could definitely stand on its own, but I absolutely love the dresser with it. 

When I first finished up this wall, I didn't want to cover the mural, but did like the look of the mirror:

None of us could decide, so we left it off for a couple of weeks to see if we missed it. When we placed it back up here for the picture, I was SO glad I hadn't put a hole in the new wallpaper! 

I definitely prefer it without, but I could also see adding "lighter" mirror in the future. I think the thick, dark frame is what really takes away from the wallpaper. 

I'm working on a few more projects in this room and then I'll share a final reveal! Would you hang a mirror on this mural or no?