Cost to Paint a Wall Mural – 2021

| Last Updated: November 27, 2021

National Average Improvement and Repair Cost

Pro

DIY

Hours:

10.4

17

Cost:

$ 721

$ 150

Would you do this project? According to our survey, 45% of respondents preferred DIY compared to hiring a pro.

The average price to Paint a Wall Mural noted above is cost data to compare a contractor’s estimate with doing it yourself.

How much does it cost to paint a mural? The contractor cost to paint a wall mural is $721 vs. doing it yourself for $150. 

Even if you’re not an artist, you can create a whimsical one-of-a-kind kid’s bedroom décor using a paint-by-number wall mural kit that comes with a pattern and transfer paper. Think of the wall as a giant page out of a coloring book, and you have a big box of new crayons, and you get the picture. While wallpaper is always a popular way to decorate a kid’s room, a wall mural makes it extra special.

The website www.elephantsonthewall.com has a large selection of mural designs, including nursery rhymes, jungle scenes, circus trains, cowboy towns and underwater scenes. There are many more designs, several with door huggers, patterns designed to surround a door, and options to customize the design with your kid’s name.

For a mural kit that’s 6 feet tall by 8 feet wide, you’ll pay around $90 plus the cost of acrylic paints, which will run about $60 for the paint and brushes, depending on the mural’s size. The kit comes with a color guide for the acrylic paint, which you’ll find sold at craft store. A decorative painter will charge about $721 for a basic kid’s room design.

Depending on your color scheme, you may want to paint the walls. But if they’re clean and a color you like, you’re ready to add the mural. Move furniture away from the wall and protect the floor with a drop cloth. The project involves taping the transfer paper and pattern to the wall using blue painter’s tape, then tracing the design onto the wall with a ballpoint pen. The fun starts when you take brush in hand to paint the shapes and designs. It’s about a weekend’s worth of work, shorter if there’s more than one of you wielding a brush.

TIP: If you're comfortable, try to experiment with a paint sprayer, especially if you're working on a larger scale mural without much detail. Or, you can use it to prime the wall faster. Be sure to thin your paint before spraying!

That sums it up. Knowing the average cost to paint a wall mural lets you compare doing it yourself with what you can expect to pay a contractor.

Welcome! We hope you’ll find the job costs of home improvement projects useful when you’re deciding whether to do a job yourself vs. hire a contractor. We’re the authors of 20 home improvement books, most notably Home Improvement for Dummies©, Bathroom Remodeling for Dummies©, Carpentry for Dummies©, Plumbing for Dummies©, and Painting and Wallpapering for Dummies©. Our most recent book Fix It and Flip It is in its second edition. We’ve appeared as home improvement experts on television programs such as CNN, Dateline, the Today Show, HGTV and many others.