Painter Girl

New Job Begins

I started a new job last week, that I hope to finish by the end of this week.  This is also a new client for me, a young family (husband, wife and 2 yr old boy) who I have never worked with before.  They just bought this house, but are still living in their former house for another 2 weeks, while some work is being done in this new house. 

Typically, I have my breakfast in the car.  This commute is about 40 minutes each way, but can be a little longer or shorter, depending on traffic that day. 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm already loving this route for two reasons:  1) there is a drive up mailbox along the way and right next door, an ATM for my bank, so I can take care of two errands without even getting out of my car.

 

 

 

 

I will be doing an allover repeat pattern on these walls in this kitchen/dining area.

 

 

 

 

 

I'll be using this Alloverscroll design from Royal Design Studio that you see on my sample board here.  I love this pattern.  In fact, I've used it so many times I finally had to break down and order a new set of stencils.  I ordered the large pro size as well as the smaller version.

 

In this Living Room I will be doing two different finishes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This diamond pattern will be done on the top portion of the walls.  I have yet to work out the brown color, which is why you see two tones here.

 

This leather sample shows the finish that will go inside each of the panels.

 

 

Lastly, I will be doing a little something on the ceiling above the island where these two pendants hang.

Milton House Four Seasons Room

Did I mention to you how much I love this painter who does the base coating? I've got to get his card.  His name is Warren and he is the nicest guy and just look at how he moves ALL the furnishings to the center of the room and COMPLETELY wraps everything all up!  Those of you who are decorative painters will truly appreciate this.  He leaves plenty of room for ladders and to be able to easily move around.  Amazing!  This wall will be the focal point wall. 

 

The other three walls are mostly floor to ceiling doors and windows, so little wall space to play with there.  See all the snow we are getting in the background? This job was delayed a few days because everyone fell behind because of the snow.  It is beautiful, but since we are getting so much of it every week, it is negatively impacting the local economy.

 

 

The first step was to put a soft glaze, using Modern Master's Metallic Burnt Orange, on all walls.  I'm loving this Burnt Orange.  I used it for the thin stripes, straight from the jar, in the Living Room...on those stripes.  Here is a glazed wall and an unglazed wall, so you see the difference.   When the Burnt Orange is mixed with a glaze, it becomes less metallic, with more of a soft glow.  Very warm.  More tomorrow.

 

 

Silver Leafing Ceiling Begins

Susan and I are fitting in one last job for 2009.  We have been eagerly awaiting the start of this job.  Our homeowners are away on vacation this week and asked if we could come in and silver leaf the dining room ceiling while they are gone. 

We ordered two boxes of Schaibin Aluminum Leaf from the Gilded Planet and if you read my post last week, I picked up the Wunda Size at Sepp's while in NYC two weekends ago.  I had planned on starting this job yesterday, but the keys I had would not open the door to this house.  Luckily, the house sitter who is staying here at night to take care of the dog and cat was able to get in with her keys and is now leaving the door unlocked for us during the day.

I had already base coated the ceiling a medium tone of gray a few weeks ago.  This bare bulb will be replaced with a beautiful chandelier soon.  Susan and I cleared out all the furniture, covered the floor, and put plastic sheeting up everywhere.

 

Here Susan is showing a piece of the Schaibin.  The pieces are quite large, making it easy to apply.  Oh, btw, we have two coats of Wunda Size on the ceiling.

 

The leafing goes much quicker than we had anticipated! We decided to do half the room and then quit for the day.

 

Here's a close up of the application.

 

Now for the messy part.   I am brushing the leaf to smooth it down. We will go over it again tomorrow.

Susan was calling me the Leafing Bandit because I tied a bandanna around my face to keep the flakes from getting up my nose and in my mouth.  I also put my glasses on to protect my eyes from the falling particles.

 

If you click on the picture to enlarge, you can really see the aluminum pieces flying all over the place. 

Once we completed this part, we spent a lot of time cleaning up.  We were able to save quite a lot of the large pieces that flaked off and will use in the future for smaller jobs such as mirrors or stencil designs. 

More tomorrow.

When Lightning Strikes

I received a call from one of my clients last week, asking me if I could come and do some stenciling in her kitchen and two baths.  Now, I had just finished stenciling her kitchen and one bath late in 2008, so I thought it was odd that she would want it redone so soon.   Turns out... her house was struck by lightning in April.   She explained to me that the utility pole, at the end of her driveway, was struck and the lightning traveled through the wires that connect to her house.  You can see the shattered pole in the photo to the left. A fire started inside of the walls, causing extensive damage.  Her family had to move out for three months while the walls were taken down to the studs to replace all of the wiring.  Now the house is back to normal, with a kitchen upgrade, but other than that, it looks exactly the same as when I was last there!  They were very lucky that someone was home, just as this happened and could call for help immediately.

Here is the "Before" picture.  I will be doing a stencil design on the soffit.

 

Since the homeowners liked what I had done, less than a year ago, we are sticking with the same basic design, only changing out the flowers to coordinate with the new window treatments.  

I started out by doing this classic Palazzo Scroll design from Royal Design Studios, in two shades of gold.  Next, I am adding this Peony grouping to every other scroll.  I had to reach in the "way back" section of my stencil collection for this one by DeeSigns,(which I could no longer find a website for) but it really went perfectly with this fabric.   Years ago, I had done this sample on mylar, so I used it as my guide for placement, which is why you see the blue tape pieces.  The colors will be deeper, to match the fabric. 

I did manage to get all the flower groupings done, but still need to go back in and add some hand painting with high and low lights.  I will show that tomorrow, along with one of the bathrooms I will  do.

Starting the Girls Bedrooms

Yay!  This job is finally underway and I think it is going to be a lot of fun.  I will be painting in 3 sisters bedrooms and also extending a mural in a bathroom that I did a few years ago in this house.  The girls are all very excited and were very involved in the planning.  There are actually four sisters in this house, but the youngest will have her room done next Spring, for her 6th birthday.  She is very excited about me being at the house and keeps checking on me throughout the day.  I think I'm going to have to paint just a little something in her room before I leave so she will not feel left out.  She wants a horse mural when it is her turn, but she also likes dogs a lot.

I have done a lot of work in this home during the past 6 years.  Today I just ran around and quickly snapped a few photos of the upstairs where I am working.

I think I did this last year or maybe 2 years ago.  I still love it.  Very bold.  It's a large room.  The other walls are painted a deep eggplant color and one is painted a deep orange, the colors you see in the concentric circles.  This stencil can be order from the Stencil Library.

I did this soft limestone finish on the walls in part of this hallway and in the two story foyer which you start to see on the far right.  I came back about a year or so later and did the stripes in the remainder of the hallway.  They are done using the same limestone finish for one stripe and alternating with a Lusterstone stripe.

The first room I am working in, is the Jungle Room.  This room belongs to an 8 year old girl.  The pink walls will be changed to orange and the ceiling will be blue with clouds.  I worked on the ceiling today.  This is the "Before Picture".

The Jungle will be in this corner, extending on the left wall about 2 1/2 feet and then over onto the right wall for about 5 feet.  It will fade out on either side, into the orange walls.  It is supposed to rain Saturday (what else is new here in the Boston area?!), so I am planning on working at least an half day to get the Jungle going.

This is my new favorite beverage of choice!  I've never been a lover of soda or carbonated drinks, but this is lightly carbonated and just tastes great!  It was my reward today after I completed 2 coats of blue on this ceiling. :-)

Well if you hang in there with me for the next few posts of boring prep work, you will soon start to see some real fun happening on these walls and ceilings!

Living Room Project

I am well underway with this Living Room Project.  Here are two "Before" shots showing just the plain, pale yellow walls.  It's a small, one bedroom condo in a Fifty-Five Plus condo complex.  The homeowner has not moved in yet, but most of her furnishings are here.

My client sent me this piece of wallpaper and asked me if I could copy the flowers and paint them randomly scattered on the walls in her Living Room.  I took the wallpaper to Staples and enlarged the two groupings of flowers on a copier.  

I then cut a silhouette stencil for each of the groupings:
 

Using this stencil, I went around the room and just roller stenciled, in white.

So far, so good.  The only glitch was the fact that I forgot my good glasses and had to resort to digging in my backpack for a back up pair.  Sad to say, this was all I could find.  Luckily, I had on my baseball cap and that helped to keep them in place!

Next, I went around with an angle brush and just painted in this medium blue tone, looking at the wallpaper for guidance.  

And this is when I had a little accident with the blue paint.  I don't know why I am such a klutz these days, but I have spilled more paint this year than in all previous 12 years of painting - total!  I was working from a small sample sized paint jar, maybe 4 oz. of paint in the jar.
As I moved the ladder, the leg caught a bit on my drop cloth and the jar flew off, right onto my chest!  Some paint hit the wall, but 99% of it hit me and the steps of my ladder. 
Here you can see my shirt lying on a drop cloth.  Note all the blue paint on both sleeves.  My sleeves were so heavy with paint, that I had to take my shirt off and put on a sweater I had in my backpack.  When I took my shirt off, my arms were also a light blue from the paint seeping through my shirt!  I looked like a Smurf.  Remember those???  My bib overalls also took some of the paint.  Here's a shot of them, with me now in the sweater:

I wasted about 45 minutes cleaning myself and my mess up, but in the end, I did remain pretty much on schedule for the day!  I really need to order some new overalls....

Prep Work

Yikes, this job has a lot of prep work! I will spend a good 3 days getting the various surfaces in this room ready for the finishes. 

The walls, well most of them, have some very old and very dried out, real wood paneling.  I washed them all down and started to fill in the seams and nail holes.

This is my favorite wall, the curved wall.  It is also done with the same real wood panels, but in this diamond pattern, where the grain of the wood alternates direction with each square.  All of the crown molding has been removed because a new ceiling was installed.  This curved wall has dentil molding that will be replaced and I'll finish. The seams will NOT be filled on this wall and the diamond pattern will stay in tact, just get a finish.

Two new walls were constructed because some old built-ins were removed.  I will do a finish on the new walls and some new built-ins will be installed.  The units will have open backs, so you will see the wall behind them.

Tomorrow I will take some pictures of the proposed sample boards.  The techniques have been decided, which is why I am able to begin the prep work, but the final colors may need some adjustments.

Wall Unit Finished, Laundry Room Started

Yesterday was a busy day for me, running around in two different directions.  I spent the morning finishing up with the Wall Unit Project.

The doors all went on quite easily, much to my surprise!  Sometimes you can spend hours trying to line up doors.

Here's a closer look at the finish.  I edged the inside frame of each door and drawer with silver.

The closet doors were given a fresh coat of paint and the panels were done in the same way.

I will return to this home in a few weeks for one more project in this same room.

In the afternoon, I headed west of Boston to another long time client.  I started my prep work in the new Laundry Room.  I was able to roll on the first coat of a very pale yellow Portofino plaster.  Today I will return to trowel the next layer and begin some prep work in the adjacent hallway/mudroom.

Learning Zone #5: Day 1

Ok, here we go again.  Back by popular demand after the carpet fiasco, I am adorning the walls here at the latest Learning Zone Day Care Center.  This one is the largest Center of them all.  It's still under construction, but all the walls in the areas I need to paint have been readied for me.  The painters are still here touching up, doing trim, and painting a few other rooms and hallways.

This room will have just this one wall on whimsical flowers along the baseboard (to be applied). It's the infant room, so the babies can crawl up to the flowers. :-)

I didn't do this wall in the last Center, but did do it in one of the others.  I only had a few hours here today, so I did the easiest rooms.  I finished the office area, using the circles, some plain, some with words.  Also, I was able to start the tree branches hanging down from the top of the wall, in another room.  I'll take better photos when I am there today. 
Since I will be doing all of the same designs once again, some for the 5th time, I think this should go quite fast.  My goal is to see how quickly I can knock off each room, adding a little twist to each design to keep it interesting for me.

Day 1 at the Day Care Center

Sorry I have been absent from this blog all week.  I've been pulling together a few proposals, nudging paint contractors to hurry up and finish walls, and working on sketches, masks and stencils for this Day Care Center job. 

One room was finally ready for me today.  This room will be an indoor playroom and is located in a basement with no windows.  I am painting 1 window on each of the 4 walls.  Each window will have the same view, but the seasons will change from Winter, Spring, Summer to Fall.  Because I knew my time would be limited at this job... it's slated to open in about a week, I did a lot of prep work in my studio.  I made this window stencil on some heavy paper stock and reinforced the window panes with blue tape.  I will be adding the framework later, as well as a valance.  To start, I decided it would be more efficient to paint the scenes in the window panes. 

This is very hard to see, but I have the scenes for each pane already sketched out on paper, sized to fit right in the frames.  I lay in my background colors first, let dry... which proved to be a bit of a problem today.  Normally, I would just hit it with a blow dryer to speed things up, but the outlets are not connected yet.  There were 2 long extension cords hooked to a generator, but the carpenter was using one and the carpet guys the other.  So, once the background color dried, I taped up a sheet of transfer paper, then my sketch, and traced over my lines.

I have all my miscellaneous masks and stencils taped to a wall nearby. :-)

Today I was able to complete 2 1/2 of the 4 window scenes.  The carpet guys kept the doors open most of the day, so I was so cold by the end of the day that I forgot to take more pictures.  Luckily, they finished, so the doors should stay shut tomorrow when I hope to complete these windows. I will post those pics Monday before I return to start another room in this Day Care Center.