The I-Hate-Heights-But-This-Was-Fun Fireplace

This fireplace was up there! (Although not as high as the one at Inglewood Golf and Country Club, but I had a scissor lift for that one.) Here is the finished fireplace. That bottom lip of the plaster part is about 5 and a half feet from the ground.

This is the view from the top of the scaffolding. (Yoga breathing helped.)  The arches are about 4 feet above door height.
The progression: before, base layers of plaster, glazing:

Before Just for fun, here's the scaffolding. That's my ten foot ladder.

After the first plaster layer

Second plaster layer

First glaze was too light

Final finish (same as first pic)

Antiqued Paris Trunk

Jim bartered (with the guy who made it) for this cedar camel-back trunk years ago. For a long time it sat in its naked cedar-y state storing odds and ends in our former house. When we moved, I put a quick glaze on it and used it for a while, then tried to sell it in a shop. It didn't sell, so it has languished in the garage for the past few years under a pile of stuff.
Periodically I donate things to charity auctions, and when one came up I decided to donate the trunk. But of course I had to mess with it first...
This is how it turned out.

Above: cedar trunk, after.
Below: cedar trunk before. (Note the lack of cargo handles.) The front handle is off an old suitcase I found at the side of the road on garbage day.

This is the trunk with the glaze coat it had for several years.
Some 'in progress' pictures:

The shiny cargo handles

The cargo handles after black primer

Cargo handles after foil, glaze and sealer

The front before the Paris graphic.  You can see the wide 'strapping' I added to the sides of the top.

The tack template and the first of 360+ tacks going in.

I found some burlap printed with a Parisian motif for the top tray.

And here's the finished product with the wide and narrow strapping, tacks, cargo handles, and new/old finish.
It was in the silent auction and fetched $150. 
Thanks for stopping by!



 

Copper Panels

Before Christmas I finished these three large copper panels. Well, they're not really copper, but they look like copper. Last weekend they were installed in the client's home. In a two story stairwell. (The last panel and part of the middle one  are over the stairway going down to the second level.) You see the panels from the second level living room. Fortunately we had an installer who isn't leery of heights.
This is a detail of the graphics, which are black glass and German glass glitter in copper and gold tones.

From another angle in the living room (with my husband in the mirror). That mirror is also reflecting the Mother of All Cork Wreaths (posted here) which hangs across the room from these panels. If you enlarge this you can see the detail of the graphics better.

Thanks for stopping by!
Kay