Giant festive murals a colourful Christmas tradition for Albany family

While some families show their Christmas spirit by covering their homes with thousands of lights, Shaun Dawes paints giant festive murals.

What started as an experiment with some leftover green paint has become somewhat of a tradition for Mr Dawes and his family on Eclipse Drive in Collingwood Heights.

Ten years ago, when his daughter Laura Featherstone-Dawes was six years old, she told her father she wanted to decorate their home.

“In a former life I was a house painter, which is where it started from,” Mr Dawes said.

“I had some green paint left over and a spray gun, so I thought ‘let’s just do a Christmas tree’.”

While it hasn’t happened every year since then, his neighbours have learned to look out for a new mural on the front wall of his house at Christmas.

“There are a few people up and down the street that do light displays on their houses, and we just wanted to do something a bit different that creates a bit of interest,” Mr Dawes said.

“It’s just a bit of neighbourhood entertainment.”

This year, his daughter chipped in by painting the stencil snowflakes.

They came close to finishing the mural by Christmas Day, but work got in the way.

As a CBH worker at Albany Port during a record grain harvest, Mr Dawes has a good excuse.

“It’s happened over a number of weeks — probably about 20 or 30 hours has gone into it,” he said.

“Part of the strategy this year was that the front of the house needs to be repainted, so I thought I’ll do this, and then I’ll have to repaint the front of the house in January.”