Painter Girl

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day! ~ back tomorrow ;-)

Working in Public Spaces

Because I almost always work in a private home or a commercial space under construction, I seldom have an "audience" when I work.  Every once in a while though, I find myself working in one of these apartment complexes where there are actually residents living there.  Such was the case this week.  I am always taken aback when the residents will stand and stare at what I am doing and openly comment negatively to another resident.  They carry on, bad mouthing the work I am doing, as if I am totally invisible!  If they do not address me directly, I just keep working and act as if they are the invisible ones.  If I am wearing headphones, I just crank up my music.   Many people feel quite violated when changes occur in the common areas of their apartment buildings.  The upside to working so publicly is the positive feedback.  Thankfully, that outweighs the negativity.  It's fun when people stop and ask questions, express their delight in the new changes, or just greet me pleasantly! 

A few years ago I did some work in the lobbies of several Senior Apartment Complexes.   On day 1 in each building,  I would be greeted with a lot of scowls and little conversation by the residents.  On day 2, a little softening.  On day 3, I had the cast of characters and their various routines down.  I discovered that many of the Seniors were watching me on their TV's which, when tuned into a certain channel, showed them the view from the Lobby cameras!  I only discovered this because one spry woman asked me if I could move the camera as I worked. Another asked if I could point the camera at the mailboxes so she would know when the mailman arrived.  Again, I felt the residents felt violated by my presence and the change I was making to their living environment at first.  They clearly did not welcome this change!  But, as they got to know me, they became excited about the work I was doing and having someone new to talk to each day.  As I got to know many of the residents more, I learned so much about their daily lives, hobbies and families.  It was one of the most rewarding jobs I've had to date.  By the end of the week, the Seniors were very friendly and several of them were bringing me treats and water!  This pattern was repeated with each Apartment Building and Complex that I did. 

Show House Sneak Preview

For those of you who live near, I want to tell you about the upcoming Newport Showhouse Guild Showhouse, which opens to the public May 10th - June 8th.  This year's showhouse is located in the lovely seaside town of Narragansett, RI.  Although I was unable to participate in this event, my good friend and wonderful Interior Designer, Marc Bordet, of Bordet Interiors has designed the Living Room in this magnificent home.  Last Saturday I had the pleasure to spend the day assisting Marc in his room.  I always have so much fun when I get to help set up a room with Marc!  Tomorrow evening, May  8th, is the opening Gala, which should be a lot of fun.    There are some fabulous examples of decorative finishes used throughout this house.  Naragansett is about a 2 hour drive from the Boston area and this showhouse is well worth the trip.  House.  The best shot of the room I have, has Marc's back in it!  This room is HUGE!  You are only seeing about two thirds of the room in this shot.

Apartment Complex Work

Yesterday, I began Phase 1 of the Apartment Complex/Clubhouse Job.  This is the job where I am using 3 wonderful stencils from The Stencil Library, the Alium, Fennel, and Rattan designs.  I have the Alium and Fennel in different sizes, and the Rattan in 1 large size.

There are 3 Apartment Buildings and 1 Clubhouse being renovated.  Only 1 Apartment Building is done at this point, so that's where I am.  Each of the Apartment Buildings has 6 floors. 
When you step out of the elevator on floors 2-6, you are facing this niche.  Here, I used my smallest Fennel stencil.  I varied the placement of the flowers a bit on each floor.  My friend, Marc Bordet,  is the designer on this job and when we first talked about this area, the walls were to be painted.  Somewhere along the way, the client decided to use a slightly textured wallpaper instead.  Last week, I was given a small sample of the paper to do a sample on.  Of course, I had no problem there.  The problem occurred, naturally, on site.  Because the wallpaper has tiny ridges in it, and perhaps just the surface coating of the paper is causing this, but my stencils are not adhering to the wall for long.  I've sprayed them to death with spray adhesive and am using tape, but boy... I have to work quickly before they fall right off the wall!  It was not too bad with this smaller size stencil, but when I got to the lobby and used my larger stencils... YIKES!  Here are 2 other floors:
   

Here's a close up where you can see the "ribs" of the wallpaper.

Because I was moving so quickly, I was able to complete all 5 niches yesterday. :-)

Today I returned and completed the 2 panels in the Lobby.  Here is the Before Picture.  I'm just doing work in the center panel on this wall and the opposite wall, which looks just like this one.

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Here is the Alium stencil in 2 sizes.
I wanted the top left Alium to look like it was just floating, so I did not include the stem.  Now that I look at the picture, I'm not so sure I like this look.  I'll let Marc decide if I should add the stem or not.  I will return one more day to do the Rattan design on the entryway ceiling.

Where is my post???

Grrr... I wrote a post late last night to appear here this morning, but I see it is nowhere to be found!  I just began some work at that Apartment Complex job yesterday and thought I had posted those pics.  I am rushing this a.m. to get to that job site again, so will re-post (is that a word?) when I get home tonight.

I was able to finish my newsletter and get that out.  If you have not received the May/June issue in your email and would like to, please subscribe using the "Sign Up" box to the right. :-)

E-newsletter

I am working on the May/June edition of my e-newsletter so cannot spend too much time blogging today.  I really love doing this newsletter.  Most of my clients are not into reading blogs, but they do love to receive the e-newsletter.  It's been a great way to keep them informed of new stencils I have, or to show some new uses for my older stencils.  Many of my clients follow up with an email to tell me what caught their eye or to just say hello and re-connect.  For those of you with small businesses, I highly recommend giving Constant Contact a try.  They have a 60 day free trial period, which allows you to send out mailings to 100 addresses during this free trial period.  They also have a great referral system!  For every friend you refer who becomes a Constant Contact customer, you'll both receive a $30 credit to your Constant Contact account.  If anyone should decide to go for the free trial, just email me and I'll send you a referral post so we can both receive a $30 credit, should you decide to sign up after the free trial period.  :-)

My Ipod Seems To Be Controlling My Life!

I recently acquired an Ipod Shuffle.  Now, I am not one for a lot of new high tech products and up until now could only answer "What Ipod?", when asked "What's in your Ipod?" 

Because this is all still quite new to me, it's taking me a bit to get the whole system running smoothly.  First, I had to get the music on the this little thing.  The first few days, I did not have nearly enough music on there to get me through the work day, so I listened to the same series of songs a few more times than I would have liked.  After a few days of this, I added more.  Then... I discovered Podcasts.  So I added some of those.  Of course, adding all this takes some time!  I'd try to do it at night, but you know how that goes.  When you're at work, you have the best of intentions of getting x,y, and z done when you get home.  Then, you get home later than you had hoped, other priorities need to be attended to, and by the time you crawl into bed, you're exhausted with no new music/Podcasts on the damn Ipod for the next day!  When that scenario would happen, I'd try to add a few things in the a.m. before I left for work.  Of course, it took longer than I thought to download and I'd then be late for work.  One day last week, not only was I running very late for work due to this Ipod, when I finally got to work and plugged myself in... my battery was not charged so I could not even listen to anything!

This week I am trying something new and put a lot on this Ipod over the weekend.  Hopefully, there will be sufficient content/context to keep me entertained through Friday!  I really didn't think I would use the Ipod all day while I worked, but since I am on this job alone most of the time, it's been great!  I decided that a few days of a solid mix of music was fun, but I really should be using these hours a little more productively.  I have now subscribed to several NPR podcasts for variety and will add some books and perhaps try to learn Italian over the next few months.  I think I'm going to like this little Ipod once I get a good system down.  I love that it is sooo small.  Only about an inch square.  I clip it onto the side of my bib overalls and run the wires under the bib so they are not hanging down in my paint or catching on my ladder. 

Sali Convention

On Monday,  the on line registration opened up for the annual SALI Convention.  I signed up for 3 classes:  Faux Marquetry with Modellos, taught by Melanie Royals; 21st Century Print Room; and New Stencil Techniques, both taught by Helen Morris.  I'm excited about going to this convention, since the last one I attended was 2 years ago in Chicago.  I'm eager to learn some new techniques and add some new samples to my portfolio.  I'm sad to learn that many, many of my decorative painting pals will not be attending convention this year due to our uncertain economy.   It's scary to hear one after another tell me their business is suffering and they just cannot justify the expense this year.  I can relate, and had to really give this convention experience a lot of thought.  I feel the classes I've signed up for will benefit my business and because the convention is on the east coast this year (Charleston, SC),  travel expenses are less for me.   At all Sali Conventions, several of us always share a room to keep that cost down.  I'm hoping, in the end, enough of my painting pals do go, so we can still keep this as an option.  The convention is not until July, so some are waiting a bit to make the decision.  For more information about the SALI convention visit: http://www.sali.org

While work has been steady for me so far this year, work that I typically get every year from local builders of the McMansions is non-existent.  The bulk of my work is coming from commercial sites and from homeowners who are renovating.  I have not been in a newly constructed house in well over a year, now that I think of it. Often I see a big increase in business once tax refunds start arriving.  With gas prices rising daily,  grocery costs soaring, and every bill we open increasing, it leaves all of us with fewer and fewer dollars for necessities, never mind luxuries like decorative painting. 

Speaking of Floors...

A few weeks ago I painted the floor in the home office of the Big House Job.  I used a floor enamel, oil based in a pale shade of green.   The floor had never been painted before, and was quite old and worn.  After a coat of primer and 2 coats of the green paint, I felt like the floor was not durable enough to withstand too much abuse so I opted to apply an oil base polyurethane.  I know that oil polys do yellow over time and warned my client this will happen.  We decided to go ahead in hopes of having a strong finish.  Well, less than 1 week later, the floor had already yellowed terribly!  Because the floor is old and uneven, the yellowing also was uneven and looked like dirty stripes on the floor.  I did some more research and decided the best bet would be to scuff up the poly w/sandpaper and then repaint with a floor and porch enamel. 

My client decided to go with white this time.  I used Benjamin Moore's Floor and Porch Enamel.  Last week I applied the first coat and as soon as I started, I could see this paint was a much better floor paint.  The green floor enamel I had used was made by Pratt & Lambert.  I don't often use Pratt & Lambert paints because they are not readily available in my area, but I have been using a their Designer White for the trim in this house as well as on the ceiling, and have liked the wall and ceiling paint.  I put two coats of the white on and we both decided we like the white in this room much better than the green!  I will take some more pics when the furniture is placed back in here.  So far, all the furniture is white, a table, desk and filing cabinet.  She is thinking of getting a pink desk chair.

Not taking any chances... I taped out the door while it dries!

This is the chalkboard wall I did a few weeks ago in the 2nd floor playroom of this same house.  As you can see, the room is still not put together yet, but you can see how much fun this wall will be for the 3 yr old twin boys!  I added the alphabet in chalk at the top, so it can be erased and changed to something else later on.  The bottom 2/3rds of the wall is also magnetic.

Porches

This past weekend I gave my tired old front porch a fresh coat of paint.  The wood is very worn, and has been painted many, many times...both by me and previous owners.  Over the years I have done painted rugs, large diamonds, and various borders on this porch floor.  I have also painted the risers of the front steps, using various stencil designs.  But, because there are so many layers on the floor now and because the wood is old and deteriorating, the paint does not survive after the Winter.  This year I must replace my back porch floor, which is in even worse condition.  So, I decided to just sand the front porch floor and stairs and give them a coat of grey porch paint, to get one more year out of it.   However... if your floors are in decent shape, I strongly urge you to do a little experimenting.  I searched through my digital pictures and could not find any of my own porch.  I only have some actual photos and no scanner, so I am posting some work done by others to give you a little inspiration.

This porch floor is by Norman Warren. 

This image came from this great website, Manage My Home. The link will bring you to a page that has a wealth of information about painting floors.

ArtSparx is another great site with a lot of information about painting floors.

Look for more ideas and information about painting porch floors in my next e-newsletter, which will be out in early May.    To subscribe, please use the box in the right hand column. ;-)