Transforming an Airbnb with a Desert Mural

My family and I have had our airbnb, Mountain Shadow Cabin, for 4 years. We’ve been slowly making updates to it every year. This year we added a pergola and concrete patio to help with the desert heat during the hotter months, and to prevent the dirt from tracking inside the house. After this project was complete, I wanted to do something that made the house it stand out even more. I’ve been seeing a lot of organic desert colored designs on Pinterest, so I thought to myself, why not wrap the entire house in a mural.

When I had a slow work week, I drove east to start the project. Along the way, I stopped at Home Depot to choose the colors. Below are the four I decided to go with, inspired of the desert sun, sand and sunsets.

I’m a graphic designer, so I roughly planned out the design using an image of the house and overlaying the mural onto it.

Here is the before, it was painted orange and was starting to fade.

I started from the top down for two reasons. First is if any of the paint dripped down it would eventually get covered later. Second I could be really loose with my bottom line of paint because it would get covered with the next paint colors top line.

I even covered up some of the outside poles to blend.

Second color white…

3rd color light dusty rose…

Finished it off with a golden yellow. My initial idea was to replace the back door with a rustic looking wooden door, but they can be expensive, so instead I played with the idea of painting the door one of the colors. I photoshopped it first to see if it would look good. The golden yellow really made it pop!

What do you think? We hope you’ll come and stay at Mountain Shadow Cabin sometime!