Night Sky Murals marathon…

It seems as though I just returned from my last painting trip to Texas, New York, New Jersey, and Toronto, Canada… and yet I’m about to head out again. This time I will be doing sort of mini marathon in the upcoming weeks.

I hope to start out in about a week on a week and a half to two week trip that will take me to…
Houston, TX
West Palm Beach, FL
Baltimore, MD
Springfield, Mo
Montréal, Canada
and then out to San Francisco, CA

A couple of those stops will have me painting a few murals while there. I did a similar trip a couple of years ago, right before Christmas, when everyone called at the last minute and begged me to add them to my schedule before Christmas. Well, I hit 7 states, in 8 days from coast to coast. If I wasn’t painting, or driving to and from the job from the airport, I was most likely sleeping on the plane. On that trip… the longer the flight, the better. It was a race, and very grueling, but it was very fun too.

For this trip I plan to add an extra day or two into some of the areas I’ll be in for a couple of reasons. One reason is that I still have some customers who are trying to finish up their theater rooms, or relaxation rooms before I get to their cities. If they can get ready, then I’ll add them into the schedule. If not, then I plan to enjoy the city I’m in and relax a bit. My back is not cut out for the work I do, so an extra day here and there will be greatly appreciated.

I’m very excited for this trip. I love traveling, I love meeting new customers, and I love getting back to Texas to enjoy some Rudy’s BBQ! There’s nothing like it, and I usually only eat there when I’m in Texas.

Here’s to sleeping at airports!

Night Sky Murals from HGTV and the Fine Living networks.

Here is a video that HGTV filmed and then showed on their network… and then later on the Fine Living network.

California Home Theater, interview with the customer

The is part two of an interview I did with the customer that I painted for a couple of years ago. He talks about the color of his ceiling, the lighting he used to charge up the paint and some other misc.

Interview with a Night Sky Murals customer

I painted this mural in a home theater a couple of years ago… and the customer just recently sent me a picture that they’d taken of it showing the night sky. It was beautiful. I had a lot of requests from others, who were building a home theater, to see the room in the light. So, I went back out to visit the customer and I taped him talking about the room. This is the first of two or three videos of that interview.

Night Sky Murals vs. Fiber Optics

I am asked all the time… what is the difference between a Fiber Optic star ceiling and a Night Sky Mural ceiling? OK… so let me try to explain it.

Here is an example of a Night Sky Mural ceiling below…

A star ceiling is a definite plus for any home theater or bedroom… but what is the best way to go about having one installed? Should you install Fiber Optics or have the ceiling painted (either by yourself or by a professional)? Well, that all depends…

Of course my view is going to be a little biased… but I will try to be fair to all three options.

First, lets go over Fiber optics. They are great to view in almost any light. This is a big “pro” when compared to a painted ceiling. A painted mural acts just like a real night sky and disappears in the light. Fiber optics are visible in the light.

When there are lights off in the room… the fiber optics are visible and beautiful. When the lights are on… they are still visible and beautiful. And, you can even make them twinkle.

But, there are some downsides to fiber optics too.

• They are pricey
• They require a lot of extra work to have them installed.
• Holes need to be drilled.
• Wires need to be run.
• If there is no crawl space above the ceiling… then panels need to be prepared, covered, wired and installed.
• If you don’t want to do all of the work yourself.. then you would need to hire someone to do it for you and they may not have much of a clue what to do.
• You usually get only about 1/10^th of the number of stars that a painted mural gives you.
• The holes drilled for the fibers are visible.
• One, maybe two, different sizes of stars.
• Scheduling a few days, to a week, for it to be installed.

But, they are nice and you can see the stars at any time basically.

Now… what about the painted night sky murals… DIY and professionally installed?

Well, here is where I can speak with more authority.

First, the DIY option. This option can be both good and bad. Bad if you have no talent as an artist and you just throw up some paint with a paint brush. (I have seen, and painted over, many a ceiling where the owner, or their friend, tried to paint the night sky with glow-in-the-dark paint) It looks really easy, but there are definitely some techniques that need to be learned first.

But, if you or a friend are an artist and you want to freehand it… then go for it. And remember… you can always add more stars later if needed. Don’t try to go too crazy at first. Paint, step back and look… and then paint some more.

There are also stencil kits that you can purchase on the Internet. Out of the 4 or 5 different stencils that I have tried out… there is one that is much better than the rest, and it isn’t even the most expensive. So, do your due diligence or email me and I will steer you in the right direction. If you have more than one or two rooms to paint… you will be sore after painting with the stencil. Just sayin.

Pros for the DIY option:

• Cheapest method to get a star mural on your ceiling.
• Usually slightly nicer than the plastic stars.
• You can paint over it if it looks ugly and then try again or call a professional.
• You can claim credit for having painted it.
• If you have to tear out part of your ceiling to fix something up in there… then you can repaint that area yourself.

Cons to the DIY option:

• Sore neck and back
• It’s very easy to create a very ugly mural if you aren’t careful.
• It isn’t nearly as nice as one done by a professional (at least the better ones)
• More unnecessary work to perform where you aren’t already proficient.
• It is only slightly nicer than the plastic stars.
• It’s frustrating.

Now.. the professional Night Sky Murals option. Are they really that expensive? To some, I am a little pricey. (But, I am a lot less than having fiber optics installed)

A quick word about “professionals” here. There are many people/companies that will teach others to paint a star mural… who have never even painted one themselves. Usually they are either companies who want to sell their glow paint (so they teach you a method which creates a need for their paint)… or they are just lazy people who see a good idea and try to capitalize on someone elses success by marketing a “Star-Painting Business Kit” themselves. Then the people they “train” have learned really bad techniques from these non-skilled snake oil salesmen. So you want to be careful who you hire. You can be assured of getting a great mural painted if you decide to use Night Sky Murals. See us at http://www.NightSkyMurals.com

Having said that… I have seen some work done by other artists that really surprised me because the murals they painted were really nice. They were much better than I had expected them to be after hearing who they’d learned from. But, these murals were painted by people who were already muralists before they decided to add star mural ceilings to their portfolio.

But, I would be careful when hiring an artist and I’d try to see their work first… or at least have them drop by with, or send you a sample of their work that you can look at. I mean… do you really want to spend all that time decorating your Master Suite, Home Theater room, or wherever… only to have an amateur come in and destroy your ceiling? There are good artists out there… but you need to search to find them.

As for the cost…I have seen muralists charge anywhere from $1 per square foot on up to $8 per square foot, and most of the time the old adage “You get what you pay for” rings true here. I charge $6, $7 and $8 per Sq. Ft. I would charge more, but I have to keep food on the table so I have kept it up there, but not too high. But, I feel that it is a good value for what I give the customer.

OK… Pros to having a professional paint the mural:

• The look is Incredible! (At least when done right)
• Painted night sky murals blow fiber optics away in the dark. (Fiber optics excel in lighted areas) For realism… you can’t get any better than a painted mural.
• You can have a real looking Milky Way, that looks cloudy with the thousand and thousands of tiny little stars.
• You can have other deep space objects and the moon added in. (I suggest only a crescent moon because I try to to make the mural look like a night sky that you would see from a remote location on earth. Galaxies and Nebula aren’t really visible with the naked eye from earth) But, it is possible with a painted mural.
• You can create the illusion of mountains surrounding the room when the mural is brought down the walls.
• Ceiling fans and heat registers can be painted too… so they don’t become black holes when the room is dark.
• If you feed some professional painters some cookie dough (ahem!) they might even throw in a shooting star or two (more like comets since they are painted on).
• Virtually invisible in the light.
• Thousands of stars in the mural… compared to hundreds with fiber optics and DIY options.
• 10 to 15 different sized stars in the murals. This is what creates an incredible 3D look.
• Paint (a good muralist should have this paint) will glow for up to 12 hours (the smaller stars will fade in about 3 to 4… and the larger stars will glow longer).
• The paint can be made to fluoresce under a black light for viewing during a movie.
• The mural changes the longer it is glowing. The mural will look one way when the lights are first turned out… and totally different 3 hours later.
• Stars seem to twinkle.
• No smell.
• Can be painted on most finishes
• Usually done in a day.
• Invisible in the light… just like the real night sky. Your room looks like it always has in the light.

Cons to a painted mural:

• The cost can get up there, but usually less than fiber optics.
• You need to make cookie dough for some artists. 🙂
• You need a fairly dark room for the mural to be seen as painted.
• You need a good fluorescent light source to charge the paint for 10 minutes (Still, plugging in a black light or two is easier than wiring for fiber optics).
• You could get a bad professional (Do your due-diligence)
• Invisible in the light. This is a “Con” if you want then to be visible in the light.

OK, I tried to give a fair overview of some different options for a star ceiling. But, whatever option you choose… get a star ceiling done. They are so incredibly relaxing and romantic. You’ve designed everything for the light… do this one thing for the dark. You will be glad you did.

If you have a day sky painted on the ceiling… then get a night sky painted on top of that. When the lights are on, the day sky will be visible. When they go out.. the night sky will appear. Very cool!