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

Black Concrete Counter

I forgot to take a before picture, so imagine this counter just painted white like the cabinets. It's now black concrete. The concrete shows a little better in this picture.

The Mother of All Cork Wreaths

Cork count: 1150, maybe 1170 - I lost track. And about 50 crystal prisms. Base is 36 inches - plywood ring (thank you dear husband) then I glued foam on and sculpted it. That was the hard part and very messy.   In progress. You can just see some of the crystal prisms glinting if you look hard.

Clients are happy - lots of compliments from their Christmas guests.

Glam Stencil

Right before Christmas I finished this bedroom for a client of decorator Anne Steward. It's white-on-white with German glass glitter on some of the stenciled elements (it looks like specks on the stenciled parts). The whole room glows very softly as you move through it, and the stencil fades in and out depending on how the light is hitting it. (btw, the trunk in the previous post lives in this room.)
As usual, pictures don't really do justice to reflective treatments.
This is the headboard in the bedroom.

Look for the textured plaster on the wall behind the stencil.

And a little of the bling.

Stencil: Daphne from Sheri Zeman

Deconstructed Chair as Hanging Rack

This is hanging in a corner of the cabio (cabin+studio=cabio). In case you can't tell, it's a deconstructed chair I picked up at a yard sale a couple of years ago. Originally it was this:

Then this:

And for a season it sat with some plants here on the cabio porch. Then the rains came and I stored it inside the cabio under a table. It stuck out. I tripped over it. It was in the way. It stayed there for the better part of a year.
Last weekend I was grousing about all the stencils in my way and decided to hang a rod from the ceiling to house them. Then I thought of the chair. A coupe of eye bolts into the wall, some hooks screwed into the legs (smart husband's idea), a rod across the underside of the seat, and voila! Hanging storage.

Old Trunk

  After

I practically begged the client to let me do this trunk! 

Someone had long ago painted it light green enamel over the original olive and black and had painted the hardware a pinky-bronze color. (Forgive the tape, I typically forget the before pictures until I'm into the project - or finished...)

Before

Original finish on the back

I cleaned it up, eliminated the spider nursery, sanded it a little and hit it with a couple coats of Annie Sloan Old White. 

 Then I lightly waxed it a few times and distressed it with Modern Masters Furniture glaze (LOVE that stuff) mixed with some MM Tobacco, and a little Van Dyke for dirt. The metal of the trunk is wrinkled in lots of places which makes the finish even cooler.

The hardware is a beautiful dull silver foil with a brown crinkle running through it, also distressed a bit with the Tobacco color. I had a bunch because I used it on a powder room ceiling. Small ceiling = lots of foil left over.

       

Distressed, Stenciled Wall

Here's a living room I did a while ago with a Melanie Royals stencil. Used two sizes of this stencil. the larger one for the wall (this picture) and a smaller version inside the bookcases (not pictured). 

White Melamine Cabinet Transformation

This area in the clients' home is a pass-through from the pool to the wine room and the downstairs bath that serves the pool. The white melamine cabinets (last picture) were salvaged, moved over and I refinished them to coordinate with the new look of this reconfigured area. The stacked washer and dryer are now on the other side of the cabinets behind the curtain.

Previous configuration with the original finish on the cabinets.