Let's Paint A Ceiling Compass Rose!

Before I started Cake Wrecks John and I were faux finishers for the rich and mostly-not-famous here in central Florida. For nearly 10 years we did every imaginable thing with paint, and I only wish I'd been a blogger back then, too, because you guys would have FLIPPED for some of the crazy stuff we did, ha.

This week we got to revisit our old lives with a quick ceiling mural, though, so I thought you'd like to see. In fact, I'll walk you through every step, so you can recreate your own!

First a snippet of the finished ceiling:

Pretty, right?

This is actually a recreation of a mural we did over a decade ago for a dear friend of mine, Tim. Tim just bought a new house, and hated the thought of leaving the compass rose in his bedroom behind so much that he asked us to come paint him a new one.

 

Pro Tip: Baker's scaffolding like this will make your life so much easier when painting a ceiling mural, and you can rent a rack right at your local Home Depot. It's easy to set up and not too expensive, so if you have a large ceiling, give it a try! I promise after one use you'll wonder where this thing has been your whole life.

 

Most times you'll be centering the mural around a fan or light fixture, like we are here. If not, just find the center of the ceiling and put a screw or tack in it there.

 

This trick never gets old. Be sure to hold the pencil at the same angle all the way around.

 

 Next shorten the string by 5 or 6 inches and trace an inside border.

Finally, shorten the string to a total of 6 inches, and trace a circle around the very center. You should now have three circles on the ceiling:

To make the compass points, mark the 4 corners on the outer circle, using the walls as a guide. Then use a long ruler to draw lines from each point to the edges of the center circle, as you see John's done here.

After your first four points, add smaller points in-between them that reach about 3/4 of the way to the outside circle. And finally, add even smaller points in between those, which reach roughly halfway to the outside circle. (I know that's confusing, so just reference my final photos to see the design more clearly.) It's OK to eyeball these distances, but make sure each point is the same length!

You'll be surprised how fast this goes. A couple of circles and connecting the dots, and in about 30 minutes you'll have your whole design traced out!

Now, WE PAINT.

 Pretty sure John was growling and whistling at me here, lol.

Pro Tip: On my 2nd day I was having dizzy spells from stuffy sinuses, which made balancing on the scaffolding - which has no side rails - pretty scary. So I had John place a tall ladder beside the scaffold, so I could rest one hand on it to steady myself. This helps SO MUCH, and I recommend it for anyone new to scaffolding!

For our compass rose design you'll need at least 5 colors, though we used 6. (Our center blue is a tiny bit darker than our outer band.)

 

Please, my friends, I beg of you: DO NOT USE CRAFT PAINT. It never covers well, and the flat stuff isn't at all durable. These little tubs of Valspar, on the other hand, covered like a dream with one coat - and at $3.99 each, they only cost a little more than the cheap craft tubes. Plus - PLUS - they're custom mixed! So you can get any color match you like! Awwww yeeeeeeah.

 

John and I finished tracing the design and painting all the base colors in about 4 hours:

At that point we lost our light, so we came back the next afternoon so I could do the hardest part:

 

Edging the entire design in Liquid Leaf gold paint! This is tedious and impossible to get perfect on bumpy knock-down texture, but I did my best. The good news with ceiling murals, though, is that everyone will be viewing them from at least several feet away, ha.

 Once I finished the gold, John added the compass directions. He used our Cricut to cut the letter stencils out of card stock, then taped them to the ceiling and lightly stippled on the paint:

Ready to see the finished mural?

Ta-daaaa!

Important Note: I know it looks wrong because of this angle, but I promise the E and W are correct! We're standing underneath the compass, if that helps. Or imagine standing at the South point; the East would be to the right of North from there. Plus you can see we arranged the letters so they face inward toward the compass, so there's no "right" side up.

There will be a pretty nautical-style fan hanging in the center, but that won't be installed for several more weeks. The walls are going to be painted a warmer tone, too, which should match the compass better.

The gold leaf edging is the best thing about this design, you guys; it shines in the light and positively sparkles:

 So I highly recommend not skipping the gold.

Here's a peek into the room from the outside hall:

 Again, not the final wall color; those are getting painted soon. (I'll try to get a final photo later to keep you guys updated!)

I lay flat on my back to get this shot, while Tim made a crack about us giving him his "moral compass," lol. (Tim is a lawyer, and John teases him mercilessly about it.)

 Oh hey, and as luck and the room's orientation would have it, the compass direction are actually correct! Well, mostly. ;)

All told the entire mural took John and I about 7 hours to finish, and only cost about $40 in materials, not including the scaffold rental (since we own ours). It's a perfectly doable weekend project for anyone handy with a paintbrush, and I hope it inspires some of you to look UP for your next art project!

*****

Hang on, before you go: I have a winner to announce! So congratulations, Sarah Lcsnano, you've won the double-sided Good Omens charm! Please e-mail me your mailing address so I can ship that out to you. :)