A New Mural at Rust Construction

We are painting a giant (20×80-foot) mural on the outside of our shop. We commissioned local artist, Patrick Kirwin, to come up with the plan and do the work.   

The idea to paint a mural came from my niece (Tom’s daughter) Sophie, who thought we should do something fun and eye-catching with the outside of the building. Something that would celebrate local craftsmanship and the community we’ve been part of for generations.

We are after all located in the Birchmere building at 3701 Mt Vernon Ave, which is known for its murals around the main entrance. We hope our mural will add a little whimsy to the day for anyone who comes our way and sees it.  

What Patrick Is Painting 

Rust Construction has been working in Alexandria since the 1920s and 1930s and we wanted to pay homage to our history. We’ve had offices and shops in different parts of the city over the years, including an early location at 1610 Mount Vernon Avenue and we built some of the warehouse and industrial spaces that used to be more common in the city.  

Patrick is using a technique called trompe-l’œil, which means “deceive the eye” in French to turn our plain looking concrete block shop exterior into something that looks like an Old Town Alexandria brick warehouse. Basically, he’s painting in details for windows, doors and brickwork to make a flat wall look like an old building. 

There will be decorative brickwork, a fake loading dock with a view into an imagined warehouse space, an old-style doorway, a faded Rust Construction sign and a couple of carpenters from different periods in Alexandria’s history. 

Influenced by WPA murals of the 1930s, one carpenter, from the 1930s, will work in the loading dock on a large belt driven bandsaw and another carpenter will be painted standing on a ladder to hang a sign that says “enter here” for our front door.  

Patrick has also been looking at old photos of Alexandria and using details from local buildings, including brickwork, as references for the mural. 

 

September 2026: Wall Prep 

To prepare for Patrick to start his mural we had to scrape old loose paint from the concrete block wall of the warehouse and paint primer on the wall. We also patched some holes in the blocks.  

Week of 10/5-10/9/26: Patrick Starts 

Because of some paint material delays, Patrick had to begin with the lower portion of the wall first, including the stone base. Once the paint for the brick background arrived, he was able to start laying in the main wall color across a much larger section and start to add in lines to create the illusion of brick. 

It’s been interesting to watch the faux technique and how Patrick layers paints of varying transparency to create the illusion of topography and depth in the wall. 

We’ll Keep This Updated 

We’ll add more photos and updates here as Patrick works on the mural, and eventually share the finished result. 

We thought this would be a nice addition to the building. We’re also happy to have Patrick working on something that people can enjoy. 

If you’re passing by the Birchmere, take a look. You can also follow the progress on our Instagram. 

Sam Rust 

Date: October 21st 

 

Despite all the rain last week, Patrick has made good progress on the brickwork, which now covers most of the wall. He’s also started painting the decorative brickwork around our entrance, using an actual doorway in Alexandria as his reference. We’ve included a photo of that doorway so you can see where the idea came from. 

 

The large white section on the left is still waiting for the loading dock scene. There’s more to come, but the building is starting to look quite different. 

Mural Progress:  Week 3 – (10/19/26 – 10/23/26)

The “bricks” are now mostly finished with the help of Tom’s son, Rowan Rust. Patrick started to work on the “loading dock” image which is meant to be reminiscent of Works Progress Administration murals from the 1930s. You can see him creating the illusion of depth with ceiling joists, a stair and tool bench in the background and barrels of nails and bags of sand in the foreground. Notice the small white dog in the lower left corner. This is Clementine, the shop dog owned by Mark Bekkering of Capitol Custom Cabinetry next door. 

 

 

 

Mural Progress: Week 4 – (10/26/26 – 10/30/26)

Patrick continued to work on the loading dock mural. He created a large belt driven bandsaw and played with its proportions to get the scale right. Once he had the scale for the bandsaw figured out he started to work on a figure bent over the bandsaw to cut some wood. Patrick also added more tools to the tool bench behind the figure.