Painter Girl

Glory, Part 2

Today's post will continue with the work Susan Siefer and I recently completed in the Entryway at Glory restaurant in Andover, Massachusetts.

This small space, approximately 5' x 5' with an 8' high ceiling, needed a little pizzaz.  It is the main entrance to this hip restaurant and we wanted to give patrons a glimpse of what other delights wait for them inside.  We only had two full walls to work with, the other 2 have large doors.

The interior door was already painted gold, but was a bit too vibrant.  We toned it down a bit, using Stain & Seal.  This gave the door a rich, antiqued look and highlighted the gorgeous carving.

The walls are rough barn board panels.  They were given a slight texture with Soft Tex and a metallic glaze was added.

We also added some faux screw heads, making the boards look like they are screwed to the wall in small sections, rather than the original long planks. We used some patterned, silver hologram foils on the screws. (thanks Melanie, for this idea concept, which I have adapted and used several times now!)
Now, when patrons open the first exterior door to this tiny entryway, they are greeted with a little sparkle on the softly glazed metallic walls and this magnificently carved door.  It's a small space that packs a lot of punch!

Happy International Overalls Day!

For all you lovers of the bib overall, bibfessor, has rallied a movement around the world, declaring today, November 20th, the very first International Overalls Day!

In honor of this glorious day, I thought I'd show you that I am still sporting my oldest, rattiest, paint splattered overalls.  I just cannot give them up.  They are so easy to throw on, could not be more comfortable, and at this point, are truly broken in. 

You can see, I have yet to fix my broken buckles and misshapen hardware.  Maybe today in honor of International Overalls Day, I will treat my overalls to some new hardware!  As you may recall, I did purchase some new overalls earlier this year, but I must admit, I've worn them rarely.  The material is soft and they come with some great features like removable knee pads and lots of pockets, but they are just not broken in enough to feel really comfortable.  They also shrunk a lot in the length when I washed them, so now will have to remedy that.  For now, I keep throwing them in the wash every time I do laundry, in hopes that some day I can add them to my rotation. 

Whether you paint, garden, farm or just love living in your overalls, I wish all my overall brother and sisters out there a very happy International Overalls Day!

Oh btw, these pictures were taken in my own kitchen.  The stencil used on the wall is from the Stencil Library, Sticky Weed.

Glory Restaurant

Susan Siefer and I have been busy giving Glory, a restaurant in Andover, MA a little makeover.  There are four different spaces within this restaurant that we have designed some fun finishes and eye catching elements.  Two areas have just been completed.  Today I am featuring the alcove space in one of the dining rooms.

This is a view into this dining room from the adjacent dining room space.  We took a damask design and enlarged it to an overscale size. 

 

We put this same design on a little used, emergency exit door too.  the design was stenciled on the wood part of the door and etched onto the glass window.  Here you can see our work in progress.  A masking film was first applied to the window area.  We then traced and cut out the design right on the window.  EtchAll cream was used to etch the glass surface.

Next, I will feature the small entry we did here at Glory!

Multi-layered Bathroom Room Walls

Here is another quick bathroom I completed recently.  The wall space was minimal, so this went very quickly, even with all the layers.  I started glazing the ceiling with Golden's Silver Metallic glaze.  It is showing darker than it actually appears in person, here in the photo.  The walls were based with a medium blue.  I used a heavy application of Portofino plaster in Sugar Cane from the ceiling line down about 1/3rd of the way.  After that, I just skipped troweled it, lightly and randomly.  Once dry, I added a little Aquastone, randomly, for some texture.  Next, I glazed with yellow-ocher, a lighter gold toned glaze mix and some linen white.  Once dry, I went over the entire wall space once more with a very thinned Linen White glaze mix to tone it all down.

This photo shows the wall color a little more accurately.  The tile, toilet, tub and sink are all a pale yellow, so this softly glazed plaster finish brought in a little interest.

Massachusetts Artists Leaders Coalition

Yesterday I attended a wonderful (and free) conference co-sponsored by the Massachusetts Artists Leaders Coalition and the Kirstein Business Branch of the Boston Public Library.  If you are reading this post today, there is still time for you to catch Day 2 of this conference: Creative Massachusetts: The Artists Congress 2009, which will begin at 1:00 pm at the Boston Public Library. 

Unfortunately, I am up to my ears with some prep work to do for next week's job, and a lot of yard work to tend to today, so must miss Day 2.  Let me tell you a bit about yesterday though.  The organizers of this conference worked very hard to pull together some great panel discussions that were entertaining and informative.  Personally, I gained useful information about social networking, community networking, grant resources, and connected with some great people and local resources. 

If you are a Massachusetts artist (all disciplines) you may want to get on board and join this free listserv for Artists Under the Dome.  This website was launched in October 2007 and is an artist run website which informs Massachusetts artists of public policy initiatives that may impact your livelihood.  The goal of Artists Under the Dome is to "empower individual artists to become more engaged with the democratic process and public policy making." The 3rd Annual Artists Under the Dome will be held on November 19th, 10 a.m. - 3:30 pm at the State House and invites all Massachusetts artists working in all disciplines to the State House to thank them for all they contribute to the Commonwealth's economy and quality of life.  The more artists present, the stronger our visibility and voice will be.  Please plan to attend for at least part of this, if your schedule allows.

Another good source for information is the ArtSake blog written by Ja-nae Duane.

Quick Powder Room Job

While Susan and I are busy working out our finishes for our next project, Glory restaurant, I thought I'd slip in a few posts of recent powder rooms I have completed.  I love doing powder rooms since they typically can be done in a day or two. I forgot to take the "before" picture, but this one previously sported a black and white textured wall paper.  This is a washed Aquastone finish, which is very easy to do.  I based the walls with Ben Moore's Navaho White and then just randomly applied Aquastone.  I use a ratty old chip brush to apply the Aquastone.  Once completely dry (overnight) I just washed it with Earth Brown Aqua Color diluted quite a bit with water.  I use a rag for this and again, it goes quickly.

For the ceiling, I did a galvanized steel look.  This pic was taken before I began the walls, so you are just seeing the walls primed.  The ceiling was in good shape and painted white, so I just rolled on 2 coats of Ben Moore's Metallic Silver.  Using a sea sponge, I dabbed in some metallic bronze to age it a bit.  I added some rivets around the edge.  These were done by dipping my index finger in Dutch Metal Silver, and then onto the ceiling.  With a liner brush and charcoal paint, I added some detailing, as well as some white highlighting on the rivets.

Evenfall Restaurant

Yikes, here we are into November!  A lot of news happening here with my business, Paint It!  For the past six months or so, I have been teaming up with a wonderful decorative painter, Susan Siefer, owner of MadPatter Production.  I met Susan briefly, several years ago, at a fund raiser and we reconnected earlier this year when I gave Susan a hand installing a large Modello™ she was doing in a dining room.  We really hit it off and decided to team up on some of our jobs in the future, since it was much more fun working together (and easier!), than working solo. 

Recently, we had the opportunity to join forces and work our magic in the main dining room of Evenfall restaurant.  For those of you local to the Boston area, Evenfall is on the N.Andover/Haverhill line, serves a delicious and creative menu, has a private room for parties,  a fun bar, and frequently offers live music. 

The main dining room formerly had walls in a pale green with blinds adorning the windows,  and doing this trendy restaurant no justice at all.  

Now the walls are a soft, coppery bronze.  The windows were our favorite part of this makeover.  Using Roc-lon, Susan and I fashioned these custom designed stationary window treatments, incorporating some glass etching.  The owners wanted to block the view of the exterior awnings, as well as the traffic visual, but also wanted to let some light flow in.  This solution worked well. 

Two other smaller windows were fitted with full length window coverings. 

Some new tables and booths completed the makeover.  Owners, Spiro and Adrienne Pappadopoulos and staff, report they, as well as their patrons, are just loving the new dining room. 

You can read more about the happenings at Evenfall over at Spiro's blog.

Next, we are moving onto Glory, a sister restaurant in Andover, also owned by this dynamic brother and sister team.

Projects in the Works

I've had too many projects going at once to find the energy to sit down and write a post lately.  I do enjoy this blog and have missed posting and reading your comments, so I am going to try to get back on track here.

This is what I'm up to at the moment.  I spent about 3 weeks redoing my back hall.  I thought I took some before pictures, but cannot find them now.  Anyway, you will have to take my word for it, but my back hall/mudroom was just sad, sad, sad.  I had done a crackle finish on the woodwork years ago, and to add to that ugliness, the walls were in bad shape and naturally cracked!  I had stuck down some vinyl tiles on the floor.

Now since this is MY main entrance (friends and guests typically use my front door), and I know it is very bad Feng Shui to have an uninviting entrance to your home, I had to give it a little makeover.  Like most, I am on a shoestring budget this year, which meant I would have to utilize a lot of what I already had to work a little magic.

I used a Texture for my base on the walls first.  This helped to disguise the poor condition of these sad walls.  I then rolled on one coat of Ben Moore's Aura in this great green shade, Agave.  All woodwork was painted with the Aura's Silhouette.  I think you will be able to see the texture of the walls in another photo.

Storage is key for me in this small mudroom.  I painted this once blah white cabinet with another Aura color called Buttered Yam and changed out the knobs for wooden ones which I stained a dark brown.

 

For more storage, I purchased these 2 plastic containers made by Itso, on sale at Target last week. 

 

I also bought this Itso storage configuration at Target.  The base unit comes flat packed in a box and assembles in seconds without any tools at all.  It is very sturdy and you can add on additional components such as doors and bins,  or stack more units.  The canvas bin on the top of this unit is large enough to hold 2 pair of skates and a bike helmet.

The floor posed my biggest challenge.  After ripping up the vinyl tiles, scraping and sanding off the glue, I gave it a coat of primer, followed by a grey floor and porch paint.  I was painting on the plywood sub-floor.  The grey door is steel and was poorly installed by Home Depot years ago.  When the door opens, there is only about a 1/4" clearance between the bottom of the door and the floor.  This makes it impossible to put down a real rug, or even floor tiles.  So, my solution was to try out using a yoga mat.  It's very thin, sticks nicely to the painted floor and now these yoga mats come in some great colors with designs printed on them.  The door opens easily over the mat and the mat is very wipe-able when my wet/muddy boots and shoes enter from the outside elements.  I'll just have to see how it holds up over time, but the mat was only $15.

I've been experimenting with glass etching, so continued my experimentation with my window panes.  To achieve this look, I stuck round dots (from a stationery store) onto the window pane and applied some EtchAll.  After 15 minutes, the EtchAll is wiped off and viola... an etched pane!  Of course, I ran out of the EtchAll because I was using up the end of a jar, so have to put in an order for more to finish this project.  I am going to etch ever other pane like this and may do the reverse of this design on the remaining panes.  Will post when done.

 

The wall space is very limited, and I have just this small strip of wall to be able to add a graphic design.  I am thinking of painting something tall, like a thin, bare tree w/o leaves as a silhouette, using the same color as the woodwork.

There was this odd little space to the right of this cabinet, due to a gas pipe that runs from floor to ceiling.  This turned out to be the perfect home for my hockey sticks!

 

I will add a few hooks to the horizontal woodwork here and need to put my key holder back up on the wall below the switch plate/outlet.  It seemed like it took forever to complete (well almost complete) this project, but that was because I've been working on 2 bathrooms and a restaurant job at the same time.  I will be posting those jobs shortly.

Great Documentary

Last night I had the pleasure to attend a screening of "Our City Dreams" a documentary by Chiara Clemente.  This was shown at the Institute of Contemporary Art, here in Boston.  Ms. Clement was on hand to field questions from the audience after this 85 minute film, which was an extra bonus.  The film features five women artists, from diverse cultures, who span different decades.  Each artist captivates you with her work, her drive, her success.  Their commonality is the fact that they all chose to live in New York City, not having been born there.  Chiara Clemente does an excellent job portraying these energetic, creative women who are very much a part of NYC's vibrant art scene.  The five women featured are Ghada Amer, Kiki Smith, Marina Abramovic, Swoon and Nancy Spero. 

If you are in the Boston area, you have 2 more chances to see this documentary this weekend, Sunday October 4th at 2 pm and 4 pm. 

Mirror, mirror on my wall...

I am experimenting with some mirror and glass techniques, so my own house is providing my blank canvases!  For my first project, I started with this yard sale find I picked up many years ago.  It really was ready for a little makeover...

To begin, I covered my mirror with clear Contact Paper™.

I taped a large border stencil, Italian Ornate Medallion by Royal Design Studios, to the Contact Paper™ on the mirror and traced the design.  Another option, and quicker way to do this, would be to use a Modello™, but since this was just for me and I was in no hurry, I opted to use a stencil I already had on hand.  I cut it out while watching "Dancing With the Stars".

This next step, I'm not so sure it is necessary, but since I had the product on hand, I went ahead and coated all the openings with PrimeEtch.  I thought it might help with the next steps.

Once the PrimeEtch was dry, I applied some sizing for the Tamise Flakes.  I love this Variegated Fall Mix and this small jar has seen me through several projects so far!

With the design complete, I now tackled the frame.

I used a combination of 3 Stain and Seal colors to darken the wood. 

And here it is, back on my wall.

Sorry that some of the text is not lining up with the appropriate pictures!  I repeatedly tried to adjust, obviously with no luck.  I don't know why sometimes it lines up and other times, no matter how I try to adjust, it just will not happen!  Bare with my limited computer skills and patience please. :-)