A 26-metre long wall on Brunswick St in Melbourne’s inner-city suburb of Fitzroy North has been transformed from grungy and peeling to bright and blossoming with the addition of a stunning floral mural, using our very own Paint & Prime colours.

It’s hard to believe this beautiful ‘flower garden’ was once a messy eyesore. Image credit: Shannon Lamden

Even better, the wall belongs to The Integrated Medical Centre – a GP and health services centre whose profits are entirely directed towards funding women’s health, child health and family support services.

The wall was a scruffy hodgepodge of graffiti and old, peeling paint. Credit: Shannon Lamden 

“I’d been wanting to fix it ever since I started here, three and a half years ago!” Yasmin Barber, Practice Manager at the clinic told us.

“I’d been thinking, this wall has so much potential – but obviously, since we’re a not-for-profit, it’s just one of those things where there’s no budget for something like that.”

After what most Melbournites would agree had been a challenging year amid the pandemic, it meant a lot to have something bright and beautiful cheering up the landscape as lockdowns started to wind down.

Porfessional muralist Shannon Lamden, owner of Hey Nice Murals, came on board to bring our vision of a flowering painted garden to life.

“It was the biggest wall I’ve ever worked on!” Shannon said.

“The brief was bright flowers on a darker base, so the first step was to lay down a base coat of navy blue.”

A deep blue base coat set the stage for the rest of the mural. Credit: Shannon Lambden 

Next up, came stencilling the design over the darker blue.

Yep, that’s where the British Paints logo ended up! Credit: Shannon Lamden 

“We then got to work filling in the design,” Shannon said.

She was really impressed by Paint & Prime’s ease of application, even when painting light colours on top of the darker base.

“It was really good – it actually was the nicest outdoor paint I've ever used,” Shannon added.

“Often when I paint with larger colours, say a yellow or even a red or a purple, I’ll have to do multiple coats and I found with the Paint & Prime that I was doing two coats max.”

The finished mural has definitely added the ‘Wow!’ factor to a previously nondescript spot on busy Brunswick St.

Blooming gorgeous! Credit: Shannon Lamden

And Yasmin said the response from the community has been overwhelmingly positive.

“So many of our patients have commented how much they love it, which has been really lovely,” she said.

“We’ve had an amazing response to it.”