My first time taking my trash out after purchasing my East Nashville home, I discovered a Tomato Fest mural on the back of the shed painted in 2011. The years have been hard on this shed and the vines like to take over. In 2020 after taking some trash out, I proceeded to spend about 10 minutes pulling down vines. About a week later, I broke out in poison ivy! I had breakouts for two weeks and was miserable. I searched and searched for the poison ivy in my yard and couldn’t find it so that was the last of my removing vines for the summer. Then came 2021 and since I still didn’t know the source of the poison ivy—I left the vines alone and they took over everything! That fall, a friend said that I had Virginia Creeper and this vine can give the same reaction as poison ivy—so now I knew the source of my rash.

The vines had been doing so much damage to the shed that I knew that I needed to get rid of it all. And I wanted to seal up the shed so that the weather elements couldn’t get in and cause more damage.

Shed Mural Before

I asked a friend, Joseph, if I could use fence posts to replace the missing pieces. He then proceeded to give me some boards he had on hand and even cut them down for me—what a nice guy! Then I waited a month for a warm day to attach the boards.

My initial intention was to leave the mural and paint the new boards in navy or black. However, my creative friend, Tammy, offered to help me paint and restore the mural. After some consideration, I realized that it would only require four main colors of paint (navy, purple, green, and blue) so the main investment would be time. (I had left-over black, charcoal, and white paint for mixing to create the colors for shading. And pulled out some red oil paint that I had never used.) Over the course of two afternoons. She helped me restore the mural and paint over the new boards. I was also inspired to dig up all the vines that are around the shed. I also moved all the debris and leveled out the ground. And even though I was covered from my neck to my toes while doing the work, my wrists and ankles had a little exposure and I once again got a rash. It must get in your bloodstream as the rash spread all over my body!

Shed Mural After

Though the mural is in the alley, while working on it I have had neighbors walk by and tell me that it’s looking good. I think my neighbors are going to appreciate my effort. No longer will this be covered in vines and where I keep my trash bins and yard debris. Instead, I plan to keep this looking as good as possible for the neighbors to enjoy.