Before you commit a whole wall.

The wall decides everything

Vinyl needs to make continuous contact with the surface. The smoother the wall, the better and longer it holds.

• Smooth painted drywall — ideal. This is what the material is made for.
• Lightly textured (orange peel) — usually fine with the right material and firm application.
• Heavy texture (knockdown, popcorn, stucco) — needs a specialty textured-surface material, or skim-coating first. Standard vinyl will tent over the high spots and lift.
• Brick, block, and cinder — possible with the right product, but it's a different conversation and a different price.
• Glass and doors — excellent surfaces, and often overlooked.

Fresh paint is the most common failure

Latex paint keeps outgassing and curing for weeks after it looks dry. Apply vinyl too early and the adhesive never properly bonds — edges lift within days. Give new paint a good few weeks before mural day. If the room is being repainted for the mural, that wait needs to be in your schedule from the start.

Also worth knowing: some low-VOC, "scrubbable", and satin paints release adhesive poorly, and a mural removed later can take paint with it. It's not usually a problem, but it's a question worth asking about your specific wall before, not after.

Measure the obstacles, not just the wall

Light switches, outlets, thermostats, vents, door frames, fire alarms, and corners all interrupt artwork. A good mural design accounts for them — keeping faces and logos away from a switch plate rather than discovering the problem at install. We measure the real wall, including the obstacles, and design to it.

Leased space? That's a point in favour

Interior wall graphics are designed to come off cleanly, which makes them a far easier sell to a landlord than paint. It also makes them practical for seasonal refreshes, rebrands, and anything you might want gone in two years.

What makes one look expensive

Scale and restraint. A mural that runs wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling reads as architecture; one that floats in the middle of a wall like a big sticker reads as a big sticker. Resolution matters at close range too — a photo that looks fine on a website falls apart printed at eight feet wide, which is why we check source files before promising anything. See print-ready artwork for what we need.

See wall murals, or send us a photo of the wall and we'll tell you honestly what it will take.