Painter Girl

Two Girls Rooms

The project I am currently working on is just too much fun.  The entire attic of this large home has been converted into two very large bedrooms with a connecting hallway and Jack and Jill bathroom.  I hope to have these two rooms done by Thanksgiving.  The pink room has a butterfly and peacock theme.  The blue room has a tropical beach and fish theme.

The pink room has some very interesting ceiling lines!  Btw, I don't know why the contractor before me did not clean up his mess.  The nice thing is, there is only a sub-floor down now, so no need for drop cloths and no furniture in the room to have to move or work around!  I had the slanted ceilings painted a dark pink, while the flat ceiling piece and the walls are a light pink.  A soft glaze will be applied over all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the opposite end of the room.  I have already added the glaze to the darker pink slanted ceiling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The blue room has only one area with a slanted ceiling.  I had the entire room base coated in a light blue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the opposite end of the room. This will be the sleeping area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using some flex tape, I have taped out a band all around this portion of the room where a wave will be added. I glazed the walls in the entire room starting with a very light blue at the ceiling line, progressing to a deeper blue at the baseboard.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using Cutting Edge's Fish Scale Allover stencil, I created the wave. I have had my eye on this design for some time now and am thrilled to finally be able to put it to go use!  I love the way Cutting Edge packages their stencils.  The stencils are large and sturdy and come with a topper and a small singe stencil on one scale... all for a great low price!  Having three sizes of the same stencil included in one package makes it much easier to stencil those hard to reach areas without having to cut or bend the heck out of your stencils.

 

The opposite end of the room will be the study area and have a tropical beach scene.  I have taped out the bottom, again using the flex tape, for the beach. 

I have miles to go with these two rooms!

Foyer Ceiling

This small foyer has no room for furniture because of all the doors and a closet, but it needed a little something.  I wish I had taken a "before" pic, but did not.  I made a sample using Cutting Edge's Fuji Allover Stencil for my client.  As soon as we held it up to her ceiling, we both knew this would do the trick.

 

When I made this sample board, I tried a rust/brown on the left side and a richer brown on the right. We both agreed the rust brown worked best.

 

Here it is, all completed!  What is so great about this design is the fact that Cutting Edge offers a free companion "top" stencil that allows you to get right up to the edge of the wall/ceiling w/o bending the heck out of your stencil and being a contortionist while stenciling.  Also, you get one single small stencil of the design, which I found very helpful to use as I stenciled around the light fixture. I have not done a ceiling in a while, so even though this was a small ceiling, my neck was sore. :-(  I should have worn the neck brace, but of course, forgot it.  I've always loved this classic design and how you can view it different ways.

My Front Hall Makeover

I've had this ongoing Front Hall Makeover Project in progress for about 2 months now and am finally making some real progress this week.  I'm slipping in a few hours here and there while I'm home working in my studio on another folding screen for a client.  I'll be posting about that project next.

My front hall is sadly in need of updating.  I'll show you a series of "before" pics first, so you will see what I mean.  This accent wall... I could live with, but I'm tired of it.  It was done with Lusterstone.  The mirror was an etching project I did some time ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's the opposite wall that is quite dated, with this trompe l'oeil shelf and jar...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

... and this niche with flowers in vase.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This closet door has some peeling paint issues going on, as does most of the woodwork in this small front hall.

 

The ceiling is blah with an oh-so- ugly light fixture.

 

 

 

 

I just spent a lot of money on 2 ceiling fans for my kitchen and dining room, so my lighting budget was limited.  The electrician was coming to install the fans, so a quick trip to IKEA netted this fun little pendant.  I rolled and troweled a few layers of Lusterstone in Snowflake White on the ceiling, and then applied these circles cut out of contact paper.  You can see a hint of my new accent wall in the background, which I 'll get to later!

I troweled on another layer of the Lusterstone over the circles, pulled them off and here is the result.  You have to look closely to see the circles, but that is the look I want.  It's just a subtle pattern on the ceiling.  The accent wall is going to have a lot of pattern, so this ceiling finish is just an alternative to painting it a solid color.  I like how it changes with the light throughout the day.  More progress today and I will post again!

 

Finishing Up this Job

Sorry for the delay in posting the final pictures for this job.  I left off with the Lusterstone Diamonds and leather look panels in the Family Room.  The only thing left to do in this room was the fireplace.  Here you see it in it's former, boring white stage.  The homeowners will be pulling out the old brass insert and replacing with something else.

 

Well, this is a bad quality photo, but all I have at the moment and I've adjusted it to death.  I did the mantle with the same leather finish and painted the brass tacks along the edge.  The remainder of the surround is done by striae-ing (is that a word?) layers of brass, copper and gold metallic glazes over an off-white base.  I'll try to get better photos when I return to this house in a week or so.  The homeowners are going to paint the white areas surrounding the panels with an off-white now, which will warm it up and not look so stark.

 

On to the Kitchen/Dining Room.  Here the walls were painted a blue/gray by the former owners and the new homeowners decided to keep it, but wanted to jazz it up a bit.  I used a long time favorite stencil of mine from Royal Design Studios, the Scroll Allover.  I had to buy 2 new stencils, the production size and the regular size, because I've used this pattern so many times I had to finally throw out my old ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And gasp... I ended up cutting my production sized one to make it much easier to do the ceiling line and baseboards.  I know, I know... it was a very tough decision, but in the end, it made the job go much quicker and cleaner.  

 

See what I mean?  By cutting the stencil, I can fit the stencil right up to the ceiling line.  I hate these textured ceilings.  The tape doesn't stick to them and my knuckles get all scraped up while stenciling near them.  Which reminds me... remember my post about my ugly hands?  I've found something that makes them actually look and feel much better!

It's the "60 second fix for hands" by Crabtree & Evelyn!                                          

I digress... back to business here...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the pattern above the bay window in the dining area.

 

                                                                   

 

 

 

A full wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luckily, the ceiling in the kitchen area was NOT textured, so I could do a little something.  I used the same Allover Scroll pattern, but just did it in the reverse, blue on white and framed it out with another stencils I have had and used for years from Royal Designs,  Trompe L'Oeil Beaded Molding.  If you do a lot of "framing", this set of stencils is worth it's weight in gold!  Quick and easy and very elegant.

 

 

Here's a closeer look and better color!

 

 

 

 

This shows the ceiling design with the walls in the background.  It really helped to tie these two rooms together because there was very little wall space in the kitchen area to stencil.

Catching Up

Well, I've made absolutely no progress with my Home Projects Gone Awry. We've had a LOT of rain here, so I have yet to paint the porch floor.  It still remains in it's ugly sanded stage.  The stairs and railings are awaiting a carpenter.  One door still remains off on my newly painted and etched china cabinet and I've lost all interest in trying to get it to hang and close properly.  I think I'll wait until the carpenter comes and see if he can fix it.  I've had no time to put the gray stripes on my too white floor cloth and the can of paint I bought to repaint my dining room floor remains unopened in my back hall.  The good news is... a three day weekend is coming up and I'm hopeful about crossing some of these things off of my list.

Now to bring you up to date with work I actually get paid for.  I helped my friend Denise Kilpatrick with a ceiling project she was working on for a client in southern NH.  The medallion was not installed when I left, so I have no pictures of that ceiling yet.  When Denise returns to do a little more work, she will take some pics and I will post. 

Here's a sneak preview of part of the ceiling medallion.  Denise did all of the painting and glazing.  I just added the gems.

The job we were working on lies behind those elaborate doors!  Beyond the doors is a huge home theater and lobby.  The ceilings we worked on are in there.  This diamond wall was a last minute add-on I did.  Like the wall in Milton, it also has the gems glued on where the points meet. The lighting was poor in this space, just some rope lighting shining on the wall from the ceiling molding.  The sconces were not hooked up or in place yet.  Maybe Denise will be able to get another picture of this too.

 

 

 

Darkening Some Walls

 

About two years ago, I had the pleasure of creating this finish on the walls in this small kitchen.  I always love when I can return to a home and see how the space is now being use.  The homeowner has taken this one corner and really made it quite inviting!  Don't you just want to sit down and have a cup of coffee or tea here?

 

I returned to this house a few months ago to do a quick finish on their bathroom walls.  This particular bathroom had just been renovated.  At the time, the homeowner thought she wanted a very light finish, so that's what I did.  But, as she lived with the new bathroom,  she felt it needed to be darkened, just a bit.

The room is long and narrow, with a deep coppery colored tile below the chair rail.  The ceiling is also glazed. I left the ceiling alone, but went over all the walls with 2 deeper metallic colors, a gold and bronze.  I should have taken a better "after" shot, with the tape removed, but forgot! 

The room now has a very nice, warm glow.

 

 

Monograms

Good friend and fellow decorative painter, Regina Garay, recently wrote an interesting article about Monograms, and featured a room I did a few years ago.  Regina was a guest blogger for this article, which you can read here.  The room featured, is the library at the Daniel Webster in Marshfield, MA.

Photo above by Chris Smith

Chris Smith and I worked with Interior Designer, Marc Bordet, to create this elegant library.  While Chris labored on the ceiling design, I worked on the stenciling on the walls, custom designing the DW monogram.  Thanks for the shout out, Regina!

 

Silver

Yikes, I see I have not posted in a few weeks!  I will have to do a little updating to bring you up to the current job I am now working on.  But... before I do that, I need to post about the 2 previous jobs.

A while ago, Susan and I did this silver leafed ceiling.  I returned recently to do a silver finish on 2 built-ins in this room and to repair the ceiling, which was damaged when these built-ins were installed.

Here are the two sets of built-ins, completed. 

This was the reference page I was working from.  The cabinets were wood and primed white when I first arrived.  My client wanted them to look metallic, but not as dark as the photo, with a raised star design.

After I did the silver finish, I cut out a star stencil and trowel on some silver tinted plaster.

Then I added the detailing with shading to make it look dimensional.

Here's a little closer look at the upper doors.

And here is a close up of the star.  I was really happy (and so was my client!) with the way the built-ins turned out.  I'm really loving this room with the deep, eggplant walls, white trim, and silver ceiling and built-ins.  I can't wait to see this room all pulled together with the lighting and furniture.  It will be quite elegant!

The big disappointment was the ceiling repair.  Whoever came in to plaster, did a terrible job and all of their mistakes came shining through when I tried to leaf it to repair. :-(  The original ceiling has a slight texture and the new plaster was very smooth and also poorly done.  You could see a deep line where the new and old plaster met, as well as some gouges.  I tried to fill in some of the gouges and the line, but it needs to be replastered.

It may not look too bad in this photo, but trust me... when you enter the room, your eye immediately goes to the edge above both cabinets where it's been "fixed".  I'll return again after the plaster is redone.

The Game Room - Continued

I began the ceiling project by taping out the border.  Here you also see the walls base painted a gold tone, in prep for a StucoLux™ finish.

As I mentioned in my last post, Todd Cranor from Stencils By Design, cut and shipped us out this great wrought iron, one time use stencil. Again, I give full credit to Tim Haas and Linda Cassels-Hofmann of Art Effects.  I saw the exquisite ceiling they created and adapted the design for my client's ceiling.  There is a wrought iron table and chair set in this room, that works so well with this design concept.  Plus, I knew it would look fabulous with the goldenrod colored StucoLux™ finish going on the walls.  Here you see Susan pretending she is having fun working in such an awkward position. :-)  She is burnishing part of the stencil design.

Now I have the design partially stenciled, with only one piece of the stencil remaining on the ceiling.

Voila!  All stenciled, shaded and highlighted.

A further shot shows some of the foliage stenciled along the outside border of the ceiling.

A closer look at the detailing of the center stencil... before I cleaned up some of the jagged edges!

While I was working on the ceiling, Susan was working on the StucoLux™ finish on the walls.  She rolled the first coat, and troweled the next two.  If you are not familiar with this product, it burnishes very easily.  She used a sanding block, followed by a trowel to burnish.  It comes to a high shine very quickly, unlike most plasters.

Here are two of the corners.  I just used a variety of leaves to fill in around the border.

I will have to get some photos of the walls and the table in this room from Susan and post next time.

The Game Room

Our last room in this home is this Game Room.  Several years ago, I put some white clouds on the ceiling in this room.  The four girls were quite young, and this was used as a playroom.  Now that everyone is older, the room is used for board games.  There are bookcases that house several games and puzzles and a great, round, tiled table with four bar stools.  The family decided they wanted this room to feel like they were sitting outside, looking up at the sky.  At first they were thinking they wanted some latticework stenciled over the sky, but when I came across this photo on Artistically Speaking: Blog Talk Radio, I knew this was the answer for the ceiling!

This design was done by Tim Haas and Linda Cassels-Hofmann of Art Effects.

The wrought iron stencil is from  Stencils by Design.  When I went on the website for Stencils by Design, I could not find this particular design, so I emailed Todd Cranor for help.  He was very helpful, providing me with all the information I needed.  Btw, my clients loved this idea and happily gave up the aforementioned lattice concept!  This just goes perfectly with their wrought iron table and chairs and really adds to the outdoor feel.  Todd had this design to me within days!  It comes in 2 pieces, on low tack adhesive vinyl, so it is a one time use stencil.  This whole concept that Tim and Linda created is just the effect my clients wanted, so we are doing very much the same idea, minus the lion.  I am taking absolutely no credit here for the creativity of the concept!  I never would have thought this one up, so thank you, thank you, thank you Todd, Tim and Linda... and the Artistically Speaking site for featuring this work and providing the links.  More about this project tomorrow.