Our first look at Sydney murals covered shopfronts, childcare centres and warehouses. This time it’s the walls in between – stairwells, courtyards, poolside fences and one school’s memorial garden – ten more real Book an Artist projects, every one invoiced and photographed.

Painted concrete street barriers in Surry Hills, Sydney, decorated with gold line-drawn landmarks
Plain concrete traffic barriers outside a Surry Hills café, repainted as a love letter to the city – one of ten real Sydney courtyard murals and street commissions in this article.

 

Sydney doesn’t run out of walls that need something done to them. For every shopfront and warehouse we covered last time, there’s a stairwell nobody notices, a courtyard fence nobody’s repainted since the last owner, a Colorbond side return that’s been staring at the Hills Hoist for a decade. Those are the jobs in this second batch – smaller in scale than a warehouse, but no smaller in ambition.

We went back through recent projects booked through Book an Artist in Sydney, this time filtering specifically for the surfaces we hadn’t covered yet: stairwells, balconies, poolside walls, courtyards and one very public school memorial. Ten projects made the cut, and every one carries a real invoice and a photograph of the finished, painted wall.

The biggest job in this batch: a Sylvania Waters home gym

The largest commission in this second Sydney set never leaves the house. A Sylvania Waters family converted a garage into a home gym and wanted the wall, door and garage door treated as one continuous piece – portraits of their two daughters rendered in gold, pink, grey and black, breaking through a spray of colour, with a line from Deuteronomy lettered across the roller door in a flowing script. It’s a photorealistic, deeply personal commission, and at roughly $6,500 – $9,500 it’s the largest single project we found for this post.

Photorealistic mural of two children painted across a garage wall and roller door in Sylvania Waters, Sydney
Sylvania Waters: a garage converted into a home gym, its walls painted with portraits of the family’s two daughters.

 

Sydney’s public and community walls

Not every mural is commissioned by a business or a homeowner. Some of the most striking work in our data is on buildings the whole neighbourhood already knows.

A memorial wall at a South Coogee public school

A NSW Department of Education primary school wanted to honour its long-standing connection to the local Defence community – an Anzac Day brief built around soldiers and poppies, painted along an exterior corridor wall beside a memorial garden bed. The finished six-metre wall, a field of red poppies rolling under a blue sky, was fully invoiced and paid at roughly $2,200 – $3,400. It’s a genuinely public artwork – visible to every family who walks past the school gate.

Red poppy field mural painted along a brick school corridor wall in South Coogee, Sydney, beside a memorial garden
South Coogee: a poppy-field memorial mural painted along a public school corridor.

 

Office stairwells and shopfronts

A company history painted up a stairwell

A hair and beauty supplier in Caringbah wanted more than a lobby wall – they wanted the story of the business told on the way up. Almendra painted a nine-by-three-metre company timeline up the office stairwell in violet line work: years, milestones, product roll-outs, all rendered as one continuous illustration clients see on their way to a meeting. It ran to roughly $2,300 – $3,400 and earned five stars.

“Almendra created a mural for our office and was so amazing to work with. From concept to revisions and execution, I couldn’t have asked for a smoother process. She is exceptionally talented.”
– Verified Book an Artist review, ★★★★★

Company timeline mural painted up an office stairwell in Caringbah, Sydney
Caringbah: a company’s own history, painted up the stairwell in violet line art.

 

A pastry shop’s own wordmark, painted onto raw brick

An Alexandria pâtisserie moved into a bare brick corner site and wanted its own signage built directly into the building – the shop’s name in red serif type over a whitewashed section of brick, finished with a geometric red-and-white tile pattern lower down. Jamie painted it for roughly $800 – $1,300, invoiced and paid in full.

“Working with Jamie was so easy, from the first chat he understood what I was going to achieve with my artwork. Very friendly and reliable, I highly recommend him for any job.”
– Verified Book an Artist review, ★★★★★

Shopfront wordmark and geometric tile pattern mural painted onto a brick building corner in Alexandria, Sydney
Alexandria: a pâtisserie’s name and a geometric pattern, painted directly onto raw brick.

 

Courtyards and poolside walls

This is the category that gave this post its keyword: the Sydney courtyard mural, tucked out of street view but seen every single day by whoever lives with it.

A bagged-cement courtyard wall in Mosman

A Mosman household had a bare, unrendered courtyard wall waiting on a future landscaping job – but the wall itself couldn’t wait. Mikel painted a tropical scene across it: broad leaves, surfboards leaning in, a painted sea beyond, for a budget around $900 – $1,500.

“We were blown away by Mikel’s mural. He is professional, courteous and his attention to detail is second to none. Thanks so much Mikel for bringing our vision to life and transforming what is otherwise a boring wall in our backyard.”
– Verified Book an Artist review, ★★★★★

Tropical courtyard mural with surfboards and palm leaves painted on a bagged-cement wall in Mosman, Sydney
Mosman: a tropical scene on a courtyard wall still waiting on its landscaping.

 

A poolside wall in Ryde, and a beach scene in Strathfield

Two Sydney households wanted their pool area to feel like a holiday rather than a backyard. In Ryde, a family asked for “summer, beach, sun, good vibes” around their pool and got a white line-art bird, banksia and sun worked across an olive-green render, for roughly $1,600 – $2,400. In Strathfield, a household near their own pool commissioned a full tropical-blue sky-and-ocean scene, palms painted into the corners, for a more modest $450 – $750.

White line-art bird and banksia mural painted beside a backyard pool in Ryde, Sydney
Ryde: a poolside wall painted in white line art.

 

Tropical beach and ocean mural painted beside a swimming pool in Strathfield, Sydney
Strathfield: an ocean horizon painted beside the pool.

 

Balconies, backyards and one very Sydney street barrier

A third-floor balcony, repainted with native flora

A Sutherland apartment had a slate-grey balcony wall and an air-conditioning unit that needed disguising more than decorating. Jamie kept the existing dark background and worked native greenery over it – monstera leaves, native trees, a wattle in yellow – for roughly $1,200 – $1,800.

“Jamie was fantastic. Really happy with the end result, and everything was left clean and tidy. We’ve had a lot of rainy weekends these last few weeks, but somehow he made it work!”
– Verified Book an Artist review, ★★★★★

Native Australian foliage mural painted over a balcony wall and air-conditioning unit in Sutherland, Sydney
Sutherland: native greenery painted straight over the balcony’s existing dark background.

 

Pink lilies on a Coogee deck, and a street barrier in Surry Hills

A Coogee household asked Julia for lilies to fill a plain weatherboard wall next to their outdoor seating – big, saturated pink blooms over deep green leaves, budgeted around $1,200 – $1,800. And back at the Surry Hills café pictured at the top of this article, the same commission that repainted those concrete traffic barriers – the kind every Sydney street has and nobody looks at twice – ran to roughly $2,800 – $4,200, and might be the most purely “Sydney” object in either of our Sydney posts.

Pink lily mural painted on a weatherboard deck wall in Coogee, Sydney
Coogee: pink lilies over a plain weatherboard wall.

 

What these Sydney courtyard and stairwell murals actually cost

Based on the ten real commissions above, here is where budgets landed. All figures AUD, and every range is built from the invoiced amount rather than the client’s original guess.

Project type Real examples Price range
Small poolside & accent walls Strathfield poolside ocean scene $450 – $750
Shopfronts & single feature walls Alexandria pâtisserie signage $800 – $1,300
Courtyards, balconies & decks Mosman courtyard, Sutherland balcony, Coogee lilies $900 – $1,800
Poolside features & street furniture Ryde pool wall, Surry Hills street barriers $1,600 – $4,200
Office stairwells, school walls & large custom pieces Caringbah stairwell, South Coogee memorial, Sylvania Waters home gym $2,200 – $9,500

A pattern from our first Sydney post holds here too: most of these jobs are quoted per project, not per hour, and the quote generally bundles design, paint and materials as a single line. The two largest commissions in this batch – the school memorial and the home gym – both involved multiple site visits and a formal design-approval step before any paint went on, which is typical once a job runs past a few thousand dollars.

How to hire a mural artist in Sydney

These ten jobs started from very different briefs – some clients had a finished mood board, others had two lines and a bare wall. Based on how they actually ran:

  1. Photograph the whole surface, not just the flat bit. Several jobs here wrapped around a corner, a roller door or an air-conditioning unit – artists need to see what they’re working around, not just the main panel.
  2. Flag anything sensitive up front. A school memorial wall and a family portrait both needed sign-off from more than one stakeholder before the design was locked in – raise that early rather than after the quote.
  3. Ask how weather and site access affect the timeline. Balconies, poolside walls and school corridors all come with access restrictions an artist needs to plan around.
  4. Expect a deposit, then a design, then paint. Every multi-day job in this batch followed that order, with a final payment due on completion.
  5. Compare local artists in one place. Every project above came through Book an Artist’s Sydney mural and graffiti artist page, where you can browse portfolios, message artists directly and compare quotes for free.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a typical Sydney mural take to complete on site?
In the projects above, a single feature wall or balcony was usually finished in one to three days on site, while multi-wall jobs like the office stairwell and the school memorial ran across several visits spread over one to two weeks, largely to allow paint layers to dry and to work around the site’s opening hours.
Do I need strata or council approval for a mural in Sydney?
It depends on visibility and whether you’re in a strata scheme. A balcony or courtyard wall inside a private property is usually the owner’s call, but anything visible from a public street, or on a shared wall in an apartment building, is worth checking with strata or council before booking – several artists in our data raised this with clients during the design stage rather than after painting began.
Can a muralist match our existing brand or heritage colour scheme?
Yes – the office stairwell above was painted entirely in the client’s own brand palette, matched from paint codes supplied with the brief. Send hex values or physical paint swatches with your enquiry and the artist can mix to match rather than guessing from a screen.

Find your Sydney mural artist

Whether it’s a stairwell, a courtyard fence, or the side of a home gym, there’s a Sydney mural artist who has already painted something like it.

Browse Sydney mural artists

Explore all mural & graffiti artists