I know I showed you my black dining room floor some time ago, but the photos were terrible and did not do it justice. While these photos are still not the best, they are an improvement. It's very hard to photograph black, especially with a tone on tone pattern! The stencil used is Casablanca Allover, from Cutting Edge Stencils. I really love having a black floor and it is very easy to keep clean.
I hope you have missed me. On the home front, I've been busy painting my dining room floor (yes, again), and on the business end of things, I'm working on yet another folding screen and a few other fun projects. I'll start with my floor.
This will be the third time since I've lived in this house that I've painted this particular floor. I will add, the paint has held up extremely well in all cases, I just like a little change now and then. In this photo, the squares in the foreground were from the first time I painted this floor. I alternated green, off white and rust squares on a diagonal, with a smaller black square at the points. Here, I've decided to change the floor to black and white with an orange and green border.
And here it is finished. I've had this floor for a few years now and because I am still obsessed with my favorite color, Benjamen Moore's Silhouette, I thought I'd go for an all black floor. Silhouette is a nice soft, grey black. But then I decided I really did not want to give up my diamonds, so I was going to paint the entire floor with Silhouette and poly every other square, so there would be matte and gloss alternating black diamonds. But... then I got the bright insane idea to use a pattern on every other square and stencil that pattern with the poly.
I'm calling it my Shadow Floor. I appologize for the very terrible pictures, but I have tried to photograph this floor for several days now, in all types of light, with a poor success rate. Just look closely! For the pattern, I used a wonderful stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils called Rabat Allover. And here is why I chose this design...
A while ago, I etched my china cabinet doors with a very similar pattern that I had found for free online. I wrote about this back in May and no, I have not been able to get the second door hung properly yet! My handyman seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.
I thought it would look like the doors were casting a shadow onto my squares on the floor, hence my name "Shadow Floor".
Here are two more bad pictures, just to torture you.
What can I say? It's difficult to see it in person and even more difficult to try to photograph. All in all, it was a lot of work taping and retaping and it the constrast is not as high as I thought it would be. I used a high gloss poly, but I wonder what else I should have used for more contrast. Feel free to chime in if you have a suggestion. I may muster up some enthusiasm to revisit this at some point. For now, I'm just leaving it because I have other fish to fry. Also... this paint is taking forever to cure so I'm not able to put my furniture back yet and I have to gingerly tiptoe across it with socks on. I'm so done with this floor! I am putting a yellow area rug under the table, so once this room is together, and if this floor every really dries, I'll try to get better photos.
Three weekends ago I decided to tackle my front porch and steps. They are in dire need of painting... again. I rented this mother of a sander from Home Depot and went to town. Except for the fact that it weighs a ton, so is not so fun to lug up the stairs onto the porch, it was very easy to use. I was hoping to be able to sand ALL of the paint off, right down to the wood, but no such luck. There are a LOT of layers of paint on this porch... mostly thanks to me and my need to change the color and design on an almost yearly basis. That green you are seeing was the color of the porch and stairs when we bought this house about 20 yrs ago. I won't even begin to tell you how many different colors and patterns I've painted on this porch since we moved in.
The stairs and railings are going to be replaced. My brother and I have hired someone to do that and the ugly, patched cement is going away too! I'll post some "after" pics when all that happens.
I know it doesn't look quite ready, but the floor is actually really smooth now and ready for some primer. Unfortunately, it has rained almost every single day since I finished sanding. It's going to rain all of this week too, so who knows when I'll be able to finish this floor. I would like to be able to put the furniture back out here soon! Of course, it's only about 45 degrees here, so I'm not exactly ready to sit on the porch.
Since I could not work outside, I moved onto a few indoor projects. I painted my china cabinet and etched the glass doors. I stripped all the paint off the hinges thinking it would make it easier to open and close the doors and look better. Unfortunately, I am now not able to get the two doors to line up and shut flush to the frame! What's with that??? Wouldn't you think with clean hinges this would be fairly easy to do? I've tried using shims behind the hinges, recessing them more, switching the hinge placement, and a million other options. The doors are still not closing properly. So, one is up and one sits on the floor tormenting me daily.
Next, I moved on to recycling the floor cloth I had in my living room. My living room is the coldest room in my house in the Winter, so I've decided I'm going to leave the floor bare for the Summer and then buy a colorful, wool rug to keep my feet warm in the Fall. My kitchen floor is old and tired. A kitchen makeover is not in my budget at the moment, but a floor cloth makeover is.
This was the previous design on this floorcloth. I had to cut it down a little to fit in the kitchen.
This is the new design.
Well, this was not without problems either. Once I got the floor cloth down on my floor, I quickly saw that the white stripes on the floor cloth just highlight the fact that my once black and white kitchen floor, is now really an off-white and black floor. :-( I'm going to add some gray stripes where the white is. I held up a small sample of gray and it does seem to help.
Hopefully I will resolve all these little problems and be able to post some new pics soon!
Do I dare start working on my front hall???
How many lives can a floorcloth have? Well, this one is beginning life #3. I first created this floorcloth in 2008 while taking a wonderful stencil class taught by Helen Morris of the Stencil Library. I use it in my bathroom. Last year, I decided I wanted a little more color in this floorcloth, so I added some lime green to the design. I thought I had a photo is this, but cannot find one now. The lime green gave it a little more interest and went well with my shower curtain.
Last week, I decided I would switch out my shower curtain (shown right) with one I had made and used a few years ago (shown below). I still love the colorful one, so will keep it to use again later.
Because this shower curtain is black and off-white, I thought the floorcloth would look better with a little more color, so out came my paints and brushes.
This stencil is a two overlay stencil. I painted the entire floorcloth with a soft black, let dry, then put the second overlay down and added the color. It's sealed with a few coats of polyurethane for durability.
Here is the completed look. I have some lime green towels that complete the look and maybe will add some turquoise towels too.
Good progress yesterday. I am more than half done with this Wall Unit. Here you see the Lusterstone finish on the end shelf piece.
Below is a close up of the finish and a view of the top portion of the Wall Unit. Today, I will bring the doors that I have finished in my studio and hopefully complete this project.
Last Saturday, I gathered with four decorative artists/friends, in Susan Siefer's wonderful studio, to have a Play Date. We all purchased Melanie Royal's Faux Marquetry Modello kit and spent the day creating some great sample boards. You can read more about this day and view some photos of our creations over at Stencil Talk and also on Melanie's blog, Design Amour.
It's done. :-)
I think that's all I can really say about this job right now. It was much too long of a process for me. A definite learning experience. In the end, the client loves it, so that is what is important.
Well, I feel like this is the job that just will never end. Stacy and I are still toiling away on the Granicrete floor. It has definitely been a learning experience. Since this is the first large floor we have attempted, we expected to encounter some problems along the way. There were some problems estimating how much material was needed for the various layers, which necessitated a few trips back and forth to the supplier for more products and consultations. Also, because this is a small condo with no place to put all of the homeowner's furniture, the room had to be split in half and done one side at a time, from start to finish. We both agree we will NEVER take on a project where the room cannot be fully emptied of all furniture again. This method just drags out the job forever and causes it's own issues. We are very grateful to the homeowner for letting us experiment with her floor, which is why we decided to deal with the "no place to put the furniture issue".
Here you can see Stacy spraying the colorants onto the floor. This is a very messy step and as you can see we have taped and draped off everything in site! Since we are dividing the room, we have also had to tape off along the grout lines and lay down some plastic to shield the 2nd half of the floor.
This second photo shows the 2nd half of the room with the color still wet and drying. We will return today to seal. I will try to get some better shots today. Of course, once sealed, I can only stand in the doorway to take the photos, so they are not the best. I do want to try to get a close shot so you can see the grout lines and texture.
Each step only takes an hour or two, then everything has to dry overnight, which is one of the reasons this job is taking so long. We are working in the studio on some kitchen cabinet doors and drawers for the remainder of the day and will feature that job next week.
I have two projects that I will be chronicling here this week. Once is my own project in my kitchen which I will call Adieu Asparagus. The other is my first attempt at installing a Granicrete floor system with Stacy over at a client's condo.
I decided that it was time to say goodbye to my Giant Asparagus in my kitchen. I've had it for a few years and I just need a little change. I'm not even a big fan of asparagus, but this space is tall and narrow, so the shape was right.
I started by troweling on 3 layers of Portofino plaster, mixed with Bella Fresco Gold. I put 2 layers on Sunday and 1 when I came home from work on Monday. This is some left over plaster from the Beacon Hill ceiling I did a few months ago. It has a little "shimmer" to it. Next, I will add a stenciled frame.
Now for the client project of the week, the Granicrete floor. I experimented with this cement based system in the class I took in Atlantic City with Nancy Jones. Stacy, has taken some extensive classes in NH and is a certified Granicrete applicator, so I am just along for the ride on this one, playing assistant.
The first step was to seal the plywood. There was wall to wall carpet in this room, that has been pulled up. The sealer is like a thick paint and is applied in a thin layer with a trowel.
This layer dries fairly quickly. Next we laid down this plastic mesh covering. It gets stapled to the sub-floor. That's as far as we got for today since we both had to leave early for other appointments. More tomorrow.
I decided the best way to feature the samples from the 3 classes I recently took at the Sali Convention in Charleston, SC, would be to post about one each day. Today I will show you the samples made in the class taught by Melanie Royals " Faux Marquetry Decoration With Modellos".
This was a 4 hour class that was fast paced, fun, and resulted in some great sample boards to show my clients. Melanie is the consummate pro when it comes to teaching. She is well prepared, easy to understand and packs a lot into her classes. I took this particular class for two reasons. One, I want to do some of these designs in my own home and Two, I know this will be a very easy sell to my clients once they see the boards. Ok, I guess there is a number Three. I really try to include the art of stenciling as much as possible in all of my work.
The first three designs shown here are all done on wood sample boards to simulate a wood floor. The designs are Melanie's Modellos with a stain application.
No matter how I photograph this one pictured above, the colors are just not showing up true. The leaves are really a pretty shade of green, the background a light wood, and the darkest color is a rich, chocolate brown. I love this pattern and think it may be one I use in the center of my living room floor.
This cube design pictured above is very fun to do, but you do need to pay attention to what you are doing here while applying the stains! This would look great in a hallway or on a piece of furniture.
This border design (sample laying on my own wood floor), is another pattern that would work well on floors or furniture. Another use would be to put it on the risers of stairs.
This last photo above, shows a stained design done on a cork tile. This tiles can be done before or after they are installed.
Both the wood and cork methods are sealed for durability. Click here if you would like to see more examples of Faux Marquetry!
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.
