Painter Girl

Previous Work

When I was at the house where I did the AquaStone finish in the bath last week, I took a few pictures of previous rooms I had done some work in. 

This is a small breakfast room off of the main kitchen.  The fireplace wall (3 sides) were glazed first with a mossy green tone.  An allover repeat pattern, in a scroll design, was then stenciled with a deeper green.

In this dining room there are 2 identical niches.  Previously white, I applied several layers of a mix of metallic glazes to compliment the colors used elsewhere in this room.  The wallpaper was done just before I connected with this client.

The Curse of Earth Brown

One of the reasons I was too busy to post last week was because I was off doing this Master Bath.  This is a repeat client, who recently remodeled this room and put on a small addition. 

The finish chosen is a color washed AquaStone finish.  It's very textured and looks better in person, than in this picture. 

Let me see if it looks any better in another picture...

Oh yes, it does look better in this window view shot.  Here you can see the lights and darks, highs and lows, a bit clearer. This was a fairly straightforward job, taking a little less than 2 full days.




















The only little glitch in this job happened when I knocked over my container of Earth Brown mixed with water, that I was using to wash the AquaStone.  This happened when I was standing on the edge of the tub.  The open container fell into the tub and splashed up onto the wood paneling you see here.  Of course, it couldn't be an almost empty container of dark brown... it was an almost full container.  It all wiped up easily, but I swear I am cursed when it comes to using this Earth Brown color!  My first disaster with this color occurred about 10 years ago when I was using it to stencil a border in another client's home.  I had left the bottle on my ladder the previous day.  When I returned the next morning, I moved my ladder to lay down a drop cloth.  As I was moving the ladder, the closed bottle of Earth Brown fell off the ladder shelf, the flip top flipped OPEN, and the light tan wall to wall carpeting was spotted with this Earth Brown paint!  The more I tried to clean it up, the worse it got!  I called a carpet cleaner in to help me out and it took several hours of trying various solutions to get this paint out.  It is highly pigmented.  The carpet cleaner warned me that the spots may return as the rug dried and I was to call him back the next day.  Sure enough, the spots were back the next morning.  The carpet cleaner ended up pulling up the wall to wall from the corner to the spots, cutting out the rug pad and replacing that portion of rug pad.  Then the problem was resolved.  Lucky for me that this worked and that my client was very understanding!  I am happy to report, I have since gone on to do several rooms in that house without incident and will be returning to that house some time in August. 

Repair and Re-group

Yesterday, I did a quick repair on a wall for one of my favorite clients.  While my previous client (the ceilings), is from my favorite Italian Family, this client is from my favorite Greek Family.  I love it when I have an entire Family of homes that I do.  That way, I really get to know everyone over the years and it is a comfortable way of doing business.  It's also just very nice to see Families who live close in proximity and are very involved with each other.  That's rare these days.

My Greek Family have all recently moved, so this will be the second set of homes I will be doing for them.   Two of the daughters and their families have purchased new homes within the past 2 years and their parents are in the process of doing some major renovations to home they recently purchased.  All live within 2 streets of each other! 

When yesterday's client purchased her home 2 years ago, I did a Lusterstone finish in a Sitting Room, along with 2 columns that lead to an open kitchen.  Two big settlement cracks had formed on one of the Lusterstone walls, so I repaired them. 

The good news is this was very easy to repair.  The bad news... I forgot to take the "After" pictures!  I was too busy taking measurements and pictures of 3 ceilings that I will do some future work on.  Didn't I just say I was going to take a break from ceilings??? I'll take the "After" picture next trip over there.

Here's one ceiling... the Family Room.  Another high ceiling, maybe 15'.  I'm not sure what I want to do with this one.  It's very broken up.  I don't think I have another view of it to show you right now.  I'll save this ceiling for last. I'm looking at some border designs, vs. doing something on all of the ceiling.

I would like to see these 3 pendant lights framed out and a scroll design done within the framework.
The ceiling was patched recently and those patches need to be painted first. The ceilings in the remainder of the house are low, just under 8'. The homeowner wants to bring in some moldings, but does not have the height to do crown molding.  Bringing in some areas of framed out designs will give her the look she is after.

This Sitting Area will have a little more elaborate ceiling.  I want the center section framed out, maybe 5' x 6', using the same molding found around the windows.  Within that framework will be something, which I will have to work on a little more.  I have a rough sketch going right now.

I'll  pull together some ideas  over the weekend and drop off on Monday.  I'd like to be in here by the end of next week to do the work since I have some other work scheduled for the following week.  The husband is a former contractor, and will be able to install the framework quickly with no problem, eliminating the wait for a carpenter.

In the meantime, I will also be gathering some ideas for the Parent's new house.  They are on vacation right now, but I had a tour of the home yesterday.  Having done work in their former home, I know their style and what they are looking for in this new house.  I'll probably end up doing 2 bathrooms and a ceiling in the dining area.  All walls and ceilings are freshly painted and the hardwood floors are being installed this week.  The granite was being installed in the kitchen when I was there.  It will be nice to be able to get any ceiling work done before the furniture is moved in.

Armoire Completed

Well, for those of you in this business... you know what a pain in the butt Thanksgiving through Christmas can be.  Lots of juggling with the schedule to fit everyone in on time or to fill time slots from clients who end up postponing their work until after the start of the new year.  That said, I'm busy working on 2 ceilings in one of my favorite homes.  I'll post more about that tomorrow.  Right now I need to bring you up to date with the last house I was working in.  After finishing the Family Room I had an Armoire to paint for them, so did that last week.  You will recognize my Family Room walls in the background of some of the pictures.

Here's the "Before" picture. The Armoire was painted once, a long time ago, by someone else.  This is the color it was when they bought it several years ago.  It had been sitting in their garage until recently.  The walls in the background are also the "Before" picture.
See how bland...dull and boring everything is in it's neutral state.

Ah... a much warmer, inviting look for both walls and armoire, don't you think?  This is the best "After" picture I have right now of this room because it is still awaiting Marc's magic touch with some new window treatments, furniture and accessories.  But... back to the armoire.  A flat screen tv sill go in the top portion, so little of that interior will be visible.  And of course... the drop cloth will be gone! ;-)

Here is the door detail.  The inserts of the door panels, the 2 bottom drawers, and the side panels are all done with plaster.  Once dry, the plaster is glazed with an umber to look like leather.  The stencil design is raised from troweling the plaster through the stencil and then glazing.  The entire piece is waxed.  This stencil design is one of Melanie Royals, but I do not have the info about it on hand at the moment.  I will try to insert a link later.

The drawer, without knob, also has a raised design.  This was a free stencil inserted in a trade magazine.  The stencil is by LaserExcel.

The side panels are done with the faux leather finish, but with the addition of some bronzed lines to form a diamond pattern.

The top of the armoire also has 3 raised designs, one center and one on each side.  Again...free stencils from LaserExcel. Over the years I have amassed quite the collection of their free stencils that are found in trade magazines.  Their small size works well on furniture or fabric.

Small job completed

I am finally posting the pics from the small job I did last week.  This was at the same house I did the additions to that lakeside mural. 

Here's the "Before" shot of the blank wall.

This is the sample board I made to show the client what the design would look like.  I only did half of the design on the board, just enough to get the idea and colors across.  The board is base painted with her wall color.

                                                                                 

Here's the "After" pic. I used parts of 3 different stencils for this design and added some hand painted embellishments.

Let's see if I have a good close up shot, so I can separate out the 3 designs used...

The center spray of flowers, with the roses is from Royal Designs, as well as the ivy, which is done in white.  The trumpet flowers come from  the Mad Stencilist.

Next, I did the 2 doors to the vanity in a small bathroom off of this room, as well as the oval mirror.

Here's the "before" shot, with my blue tape already in place.

 

Here are the doors, "after".  I used the leaves only, from a large stencil that had lots of flowers. I outlined the leaves, very loosely, with white.

Here's a close up of the leaves.  I stenciled through a piece of screening to give the leaves a little more interest.

And lastly, here's the matching mirror.  This was a quick, easy, and inexpensive way to give this room a little personality. 

Mural Additions

Earlier this month, I wrote about returning to one of my client's homes to add to a mural, (http://paintit.typepad.com/painter_girl/2007/11/adding-to-a-mur.html).  I returned to this home yet again this week to do some new work in the Master Bedroom and a small bathroom.  While I was there, I took new pictures of the mural with the additional work.  The last time I was there, my batteries ran out in my camera, so I was not able to get clear pictures.

Here is the mural before the additions.

Here is the mural with the new additions.  I added the dark blue pail on the right because a new grandchild was born into this family.  I also added a 2nd Golden Retriever (near the umbrella), as this was also a new addition to the family.  A white fence was constructed around the deck over the summer, so I painted that in too.  It's fun to see the mural grow and change as this family grows and changes!

Last Day at this Job

Today I finished up at the Four Little Girls House.  Wait until you see this awesome bathroom for the oldest and girl and one of the other younger ones!

Again, I wish I could take all the creative credit for this design concept, but no can do!  I saw this on one of my favorite blog sites, Design Inspiration, Planet Stencil Library.  (Look under May 2007).  I  did not use the templates you can purchase through the Stencil Planet Library because I wanted to try this new compass I just purchased through Micro-Mark.  The tool was inexpensive, $26 and allows me to make circles up to 6' in diameter.  What I did for this job was make 3 sets of concentric circles, 4 circles to a set.  The sets are small, medium and large.  Using a low tack, repositionable spray adhesive, I placed the sets of circles on the wall where I thought I wanted them.  After a little adjusting, I just traced the outline of each circle on the wall.  I used a good angle brush, like a sash brush and just painted freehand.  All paints, including the background paint, is from Ben Moore's new line of paints called Aura.  This paint line has the very rich, deep tones and covers completely with 2 coat.  This deep red pictured was covered almost completely with 1 coat!  I only had to roll a light 2nd layer on.  The two other walls in this large bath are painted solid.  One walls is the purple you see in the circles and the other is the orange from the center circles. 

There is a very long hallway on the second floor, that connects to the 2 story foyer wall I had done previously.  I did one wall to match the foyer and the long hallway was done in stripes.  The stripes alternate, Sage Green Lusterstone and the 3 color glaze from the foyer. 

Here's a close up of the main wall that is seen from the foyer.

 

 

 

This shot shows the foyer wall I had done previously (on the right), the new wall on the left, and the stripes at the end of the hall. Oops... and there's my ladder, not quite out of site!  The circle bath is at the end of this hall, off to the left. There is one bedroom off to the right of the stripes.

Here's the opposite end of the hall, where there are a lot of stripes!  The hall is about 20' long, with 4 bedrooms and a bath at this end of the house.

This angle really gives you a sense of the length of the hall. 

I had a great time at this house!  I will return again in a few weeks to do 2 of the girls bedrooms, the laundry room and a piece of furniture.  They are off for vacation next week and so I am I!  Stay tuned...

One room done, 2 to go...

On Friday I was able to complete one of the girls bathrooms, but did not have a chance to post.  This bathroom is occupied by a 12 y/o girl and a 7 y/o girl.  They wanted a very girlie theme and already had some neat French themed pictures and accessories.  That was my inspiration for this room.

This is painted over the jacuzzi. I did a soft striae finish on all walls in this room first (except the wall with the storefront mural). 

Here is a close up view of the cat. 

I added the draped fabric and rod last minute because I felt the wall needed a little something extra. 

Close up of shoes, purse and pearls in "window

Another view of the "window".

I certainly cannot take full credit for this design concept.  A friend of mine, who is a decorative painter in Florida, did this Parisian theme a while ago and sent me the pictures.  She also was kind enough to share with me her sketch for the shoes and dress, so I could make an overhead.  I invite you to visit Tammi Lathum's website, Matilda Jane to view some of her wonderful work.  Thanks Tammi!  Other credits for this mural belong to Jan Dressler stencils for the hat design.  I used a stencil designed by Karrie Butler for the cat, but I believe I bought that at a close out sale.  I see P.J. Tetrault carries some of Karrie's stencils. The curtain rod design, Twist Finial, is by Lynn Brehm, Natural Accents, and lastly, the Small Paisley design on the purse and the Brocade Design on the draped fabric are from Royal Design Studio.  For some of this mural I projected the outline of the design on the wall and then free hand painted.  I used a stencil for the cat, but then ended up hand painting the majority of the detail.  I used Tammi's dress, hanger, shoes and window front design from an overhead projected and hand painted.

Note:  grrr.. I have just spent a good 30 minutes trying to edit this page to make the captions line up with the correct picture, etc.  It looks fine on my screen, but then when I publish the post, everything is off! This happens constantly to me. Does anyone else have this problem?  I think maybe TypePad is not Mac friendly!  I am out of time now, but will have to try to resolve this later!

Four Little Girl Family

Today I began about a week's worth of work at "The Four Little Girl Family".  I have done some other work in this home over the past 2 yrs.  I will call them "The Four Little Girl Family" because, this couple have 4 lovely daughters, ranging in ages 13 down to about 3.  Mom & Dad have this large house very well organized!  I am always amazed when I return to this house to see how they manage to have 4 kids, a lot of toys, sports equipment, etc. and everything seems to have its' place.  The house looks lived in, comfortable, neat and clean.

I am here this week and probably part of next week, to do 2 of the bathrooms which the girls use and to do the long hallway off of these baths that connects to the foyer I did previously.  For this job, I decided to just surprise you with the finished rooms when I am done and not show the progress.  All walls are just Ben Moore's Navaho White right now, so a blank canvas for me!  The older girls were allowed to pick out what they wanted for each of their bathrooms.  This is really going to be a fun job!

I thought I would show you the work I have done in this house over the past few years.

This is their 2 story foyer.  I did a Green Limestone Finish here.  I had Stacy and another woman, Karen, help me with this...because as I've said before, I am afraid of heights! I think this foyer is 18' high.  I can only take credit for everything below that tallest window!

Here's a little closer view.  This finish uses 4 glazes, all applied at once and ragged.  The predominate color is a sagey green.  Veining is added last.

With all the females in the house, Dad decided he needed his own bathroom!  His is in their finished basement and he selected the them and provided reference materials for me. It's a long, narrow room, so I can't stand back to fit the entire mural in the frame.  There is a bench mounted to the wall beneath the trees.

Here's another shot that shows the beach area of the mural.

This border design is in the breakfast area of the kitchen. The doorway opens into the family room.

Here is a close up of the design.  It is done in a sepia tone with just a little green and pin coloring.

In this play room I just did a cloud ceiling and the ribbon and stars in each of the 4 corners.

Done!

On Friday I was able to complete all work for the Kitchen/Dining Room job.  It was decided that no olive vines would be added over the 2 remaining doors that were in consideration for this.  The homeowner felt with the addition of the vines on the redone tiles, that was enough.  I am sitting on the fence with this one.  I could see a small branch over the door to the Dining Room, but it will depend on what art work gets hung to the left of the DR door.  It's a good idea to just live with this as is, and add more later if it is felt needed.  Here are the photos from the Dining Room:

Sage Green Lusterstone finish on the top portion of the walls.

Another view.

This view shows both finishes used in this room.  Lusterstone is below the chair rail too, but in a color called Champagne. Both of the these colors are a very close match to the colors that are found in the window treatments that will be hung in this room.