We’ve all wished we could bring a slice of the park back with us after a day spent in Disney World. One New York house has found a way to do just that! See how the home went from ordinary to Walt Disney World magic! We were so wowed by this transformation that we had to chat its creator, Anita Boyer! Let’s dive into the details of creating this colorful Disney home and find out what inspired the floor to ceiling renovation.
Welcome to PTM! We absolutely love your magical home and knew we had to feature it as soon as we saw it! Could you give a brief introduction to yourself to our fans?
“I am Anita Boyer, and I live with my fiancé Joe Pallister. I was born into the Disney fandom. My grandpa Manuel Medina…worked at Disneyland doing upholstery and furniture design. There is still a bench in Guest Services that he made! My mom Sylvia Boyer worked in Disneyland when she was in high school as characters in the bicentennial parade. She played the little boy who rang the liberty bell when they performed for the Emperor of Japan!
I grew up visiting Disneyland and first went to Disney World in my 20s, and it is now my second home…”
Tell us a bit about your inspiration, what was the spark that led you to Disney-ify your house?
“Joe and I were supposed to get married on June 30th at the Contemporary with our 20 closest friends and family members. COVID threw a wrench in that and a couple shorter trips to Disney prior and since, so we started feeling the need to reorganize and bring some of the magic home, literally!
“We actually started planning the EPCOT wall after we saw the person who went viral shared her specs. It ended up being the last part of the refurb. We started in the kitchen by bringing our favorite resort home with Polynesian accents and tropical plant silhouettes.”
What was your design process like? How did you go about selecting what you wanted?
”I wish I could say we had a master plan and thought it all out, but the truth is that we just kind of picked a wall every day and said, ‘ok, what can this be?’ and then went for it! I can’t believe how well it came together, and we are still constantly adding and rearranging to optimize.
After the kitchen became Animal Kingdom/Polynesian we decided to try to make part of the bedroom Magic Kingdom with the Purple Wall. Purple is my favorite color, so this was an incredibly satisfying project. I had a photo of the Disney Purple Wall to reference, but I also wasn’t worried about it being exact. I wanted it to be similar but still distinctly our own.”
“We weren’t even planning to do the Hollywood Studios stripes because we had a huge wall shelf that I was just trying to reorganize with new shorter brackets. We went to Lowes and bought out their selection of shelves and brackets only to come home and realize that they didn’t fit our older wall-mounted braces. We took the braces down and realized we had a huge stretch of wall that we could play with, and it inspired us to find a way to include Hollywood Studios! We had a photo that Joe took of the Hollywood Tower Hotel blown up to 36×48 and moved my shelves and turned them into a place to display our mug collection and added a floating shelf to display everything HS related!”
“We also painted the furniture to match, Joe’s dresser got new silver handles and painted to match the ‘tantalizing teal’ of the Hollywood Studios wall. We even painted the fish tank stand to include an art deco facade!”
Give us the details on how you made your vision come to life! How long did it take you to paint the rooms? Did you have any help?
“The Purple Wall took 3 days, the Hollywood Studios wall took 2 days, the Animal Kingdom/Polynesian took 1 day, and EPCOT took 2 days. One day was from 8am-midnight straight through! It was an incredible amount of meticulous taping; the taping might have been the most time consuming and tedious part, but SO worth it! The EPCOT wall literally bursts out and looks 3D.”
“My favorite details that I added in that really clinch it for me magic wise though are my Monorail passing through a silhouette of the Contemporary and even a tiny rendition of the Mary Blair mosaic in the concourse. It has an homage to my favorite artwork in the park, and that is her 5-legged goat!
We also added LED lights around the Epcot wall to recreate Spaceship earth’s nighttime look as it fades from oranges to purples and blues.”
What’s it like living in such a magical, colorful home?! What are your thoughts on it now that you’ve “lived with it” for some time?
“I am obsessed. I created a Doterra oil combo that is an almost perfect replica of the lobby at the Polynesian, and I just breathe it in and feel the memories of being at the parks. I am grateful for the distraction and therapeutic relief that this project gave us during the first couple of quarantine months. I teach dance, and suddenly, every class was shortened, poorly attended, and virtual…I missed the studio, my kids, and the freedom and energy of teaching, and this project absolutely got us through.”
Do you have any advice for folks looking to redecorate their own homes to incorporate a Disney aesthetic?
“I would say that my fiance and I didn’t let convention or anything like that hold us back, which would be my advice…
The EPCOT wall was the most difficult, but the blueprint was easy to follow. Take your time, and be sure to pick colors and recreate what means the most to you. For us being able to turn on some park music and sit back in the evening and watch the colors fade across the Spaceship Earth wall brings us back to our favorite place and gives us peace. I can see it being too busy or loud for others, though!
Some paint brands have an app that will help you pick colors based on photos. That is how we got the colors for our Hollywood Studios wall!”
We’re just blown away by Anita’s creativity! You can follow along and see more glimpses into her magical home on Instagram at @anita_more_disney and pick up some of her Disney inspired art at www.anitamore.com. We’re looking to snag our purple wall painting, stat!
