For those of you just tuning in, I have two sisters who are professional artists. The one who does theater scenery and tromp l’oeil lives here in town, and when I moved into my new house some years back, she decided to paint my closets for me. With scenes from children’s books/movies. I’ve already posted pictures of what she did in the front hall closet; this is what’s in the upstairs hall: Peter Pan.
This closet is really hard to photograph so that you can see that it’s a closet and still see the picture – it’s in the upstairs hall across from the stairs, so I can’t back up enough. So all of these are kind of close-up details. Anyway, in this picture, you can just see a bit of the shelf and the clothes-rod in the upper right corner. This is the back wall that you’d see when you open the door, with the Lost Boy’s tree (their underground hideout is further down) and the pirate ship.
And this is what’s on the bottom right, positioned so he’s looking hungrily up at the pirate ship. He’s the only actual figure in this one. There’s also the mermaid’s lagoon, up above him:
And last but not least, there’s Skull Mountain, painted on the inside wall just above the shelf, where you can only see it when you walk into the closet and look back out the door:
You can see a bit of my upstairs hall and the hall window over on the left.
This is why I have hardly any actual storage space left in my house.
Wow, this is awesome. 🙂 I am so amazed by people who paint murals, not the least because they have so MUCH space to cover, yet don’t run out of ideas. Your sister did an amazing job.
I’ve so been enjoying these closet posts. 🙂 I’m fascinated by more-than-just-a-closet closets (really, isn’t everyone who ever read Narnia?). When my sister and I were little and our parents were taking us to open houses, we begged them to buy a house in which a hall closet opened up to stairs leading up to a bonus room. They didn’t buy the house, but we still talk about that surprise closet.
There was a fun article in InStyle magazine once about fashion designer Anna Sui, who cut out the back of a beautiful armoire and uses it as the “door” to her walk-in closet, so that she gets a little Narnia moment every time she enters.
I’ve finally started reading a series I discovered a little while back, The Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley (fairy tales in the modern world). While buying another volume of it this past weekend, I was with a friend and mentioned how when I was younger, I dreamt of my ideal home, wherein every room would be painted in murals. One would be a forest, another the sky, another the inside of a castle. This makes me think that should my home-owning dream ever come true, I’d love to do this with the closest and nooks and crannies, fairy tale/fantasy murals.
The Peter Pan and Oz murals are both wonderful.
Oh, that crocodile is absolutely adorable!
That is amazing! The details and everything are wonderful! But, one question: how can you stand to put anything in those closets, which might obstruct your beautiful views? 🙂
Mary – That’s why I said I’m running out of storage space! 🙂