I have to admit, I have been curious about Murals for a while. And they are everywhere - from the butterfly field in a friend′s daughter′s room to the Tuscan villa on a kitchen wall at an open house. Celebrities have them — Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, Madonna, Andy Roddick - to name a few. You just can not ignore this growing trend since identified by design magazines back in 2007.

If you think of it, murals have been around since the beginning of time — think of cave art in pre-historic times. The term was actually coined from the Latin word murus which stands for wall. Diego Rivera and others in the muralista art movement made the term more formal. Frescos are the best known murals — they use water-soluble paints on a large surface. They are however hard to change — it took Leonardo 4 years to finish The Last Supper. Murals have often been used as a political and social statement, particularly in Northern Ireland, but have become a popular choice of many cities that feature beautiful downtown panoramas in their airports and major centers.

According to USA Weekend, today mural is among the top 3 new alternatives to liven up your walls. Some of the best things about Murals:

• Murals can transform a space. They can make a room appear larger, show a window where there is none, add the sky where there is gray, turn a kid′s room into Alice in Wonderland.
• Murals can make it personal. Extreme Makeover Home Edition is a great example of making the new home special to its residents, customizing rooms to each individual taste, frequently with murals.
• Murals can blend the inside with the outside, such as extending a kitchen into the garden by painting flowers and trees from the garden.
• Having a mural in your child′s room is a great way to foster creativity and imagination. Once your child has a preference for a certain character or style, you can make that dream into a mural.
• It′s a one-stop design shop, as you can create a scene without having to buy any objects — make it a baseball field, a race track, a glamorous movie, a princess castle, or a Spongebob underwater silliness. You don′t have to stop at walls either — the artist can continue the design on the ceiling (think of a starry night or a butterfly field) or around the windows.

Depending on the type of mural and artist you choose, the time spent on one can take from 4 hours to several days. It is smart to spend more time planning and talking to the artist or company before you get started — since these are one of a kind, making changes will be difficult.

Mural styles vary, but they fall into three major categories: hand-painted murals, vinyl murals and tile murals.

Hand painted murals can range from fresco to faux art to a realistic trompe l′oeil. The artist you choose will do the best job describing the subtle differences and suggesting what′s right for you. The cost of hand painted murals can be quite significant — one quote I got for a movie room was $3000, but if you find a local artist that works near you vs. having to travel to a location, you can help bring the cost down. Ask around (your neighbors, friends, local real estate agents, city hall) for recommendations, or try ServiceMagic.com for a web quote.

Vinyl murals are essentially of self-adhesive wallpaper with a unique or your digital design, scaled to any dimension. It doesn′t harm walls, it′s movable and removable. It can cost as little as $25 and as high as you want it to be. One of the best known in this class is Murals Your Way. Muralsyourway.com contains over 5000 licensed images from great artists and photographers. You can choose from their extensive collection of nature, world or children′s murals, or make a more personalized image of your digital pictures (make sure it′s high res) into a mural. It is in essence a wall-paper but it is jazzed up, as it shows one image that is digitized and made to look realistic. Murals your way murals are not printed on paper — they use fabric backed vinyl that is tear-proof and easy to clean. The cost is $7.95 per square foot. They ship to all locations including all international orders. You may need professional help to hang it, as these murals don′t come pre-pasted. The best part is that the mural can be as big as you want — no maximum size! So you can turn your basement into a golf field or into the ocean world. This option, as you can see, is much less expensive than hiring a traditional muralist to paint your walls. But perhaps, it is not as completely unique as the local artist′s touch.

Tile Mural is another option to order custom work for your walls. These pieces are ideal for any location where tiles would work well — kitchen backsplashes, bathrooms, garden or a wine cellar. These murals are typically hand painted and then baked on enamel. Make sure when choosing the artist for this job that the paints used can hold up to heat and water — functional in other words. The cost for tile murals is somewhere in between a hand painted job and a vinyl mural.

Now that you know the types of murals and potential time spent, here is a handy checklist to consider when creating a great mural:

• Room size, its overall design and furniture
• Room purpose — kitchen and bathroom will require perhaps a different set of materials than a living room
• Your taste: even if everyone on the block is going for the Italian villa theme, it may not be your style, so go with what you like, not what your neighbors like.
• Cost. While hand-painted murals can be one-of-a-kind, so can be the tile and vinyl murals, usually considerably less money.
• Timelessness. Is this an image you can live with for a long time? Yes, anything can be changed, but with the effort involved, perhaps consider the design that will stand the test of time, at least for a while.