How to Turn a Formal Dining Room into a Glam Pool Room: Part 1

 I have some clients, a young family with 3 children who live in a fantastic mid century house on Lake Ponchatrain.  Before I joined the project, they had already renovated the house saving as many original features as possible, like the marble and terrazzo floor in the entry and great room.  They did open the kitchen to the great room, creating an enormous space that has room for two sitting areas and a dining area for 8 by the kitchen:

 

While they do entertain quite a bit, they have a very informal lifestyle, so with a large casual dining area, they didn't feel like they needed a separate formal dining room.  Furthermore, they had converted the large downstairs guest room to a t.v. room for the kids, so they didn't need another seating area.  However, they did think they would enjoy a pool table.  They had already purchased a large formal rug in shades of grey and champagne and had inherited the crystal chandelier when they bought the house.  We may replace it one day, but decided to work around it for now.

 

Since the pool room is open across the center hall to the living room, we needed to make sure it comeplemented the white, gray, and black color scheme, as well as the mix of sleek furniture with rustic accents.  You can see the cased opening to the pool room to the left in the photo below.





 

I decided that we needed a strong statement on the wall you face entering the room.  Because of pool sticks, I was hesitant to use art or a mirror for that statement, so decided that a contemporary faux treatment would be stricking.  Plus, it would give me the chance to blend the warm  and cool grays present in the existing rug and wall color.

 

 

I started off by drawing a grid of rectangles. 



I used Modern Masters metallics in a range of silvers and champagne.  The key to the technique is to keep your paint in "stripes" in the pan.

 

 

I think carefully rolled a roller in the pan, trying not to blend the paints, and rolled the stripes onto the wall.  I then quickly and lightly softened the stripes with a dry brush.

 Here's a shot with the sleek new pool table in place and the existing rug .

Next installment:  furniture and painting the trim



Sweet Respose: A serene retreat for an empty-nester couple

Our brief was to create a serene retreat fore an empty-nester couple. The room had good bones: it was well-proportioned with a lot of natural light, a beautiful four poster bed, and a tray ceiling. It just needed a little help to fulfill its potential. When we met with the client, she had tear sheets (I wish all clients did) that revealed her taste: they all shared a warm creamy mainly monochromatic palette, a restrained feminity, and an undated traditional sensibility.

We painted the walls in a creamy pale gold and re-carpeted in a luxurious stiae wool carpet. A custom double ruffled faille bedskirt and fine quailty Italian linens make the bed a retreat after a long day. Vintage Empire style mirrors with a custom finish flanking the bed provide a sense of architecture and symmetry, while the art platters above the headboard tie together the palette.

Interlined silk panels provide privacy at night, whil sheers allow in diffused light during the day. A small club chair upholstered in charcoal velvet provides a masculine touch to keep the room from becoming too feminine (there is a husband to consider after all), as well as a place for the clients to persue their voracious reading. Ottomans at the foot of the bed pull up to the chairs to provide more comfort.

Across from the bed, a custom nude (painted by me) provides a pretty view. This couple are not big television watchers, so there is not a tv set in the room.

Double doors provide access to the adjoining bath and closets. A faux finish on the door gives the look of aged cypress. Because this view to the bathroom contained so many doors--the entrance double doors, the doors straight ahead (they lead to his and her closets), and a door to the water closet (unseen, but directly to the right of the bath entrance), we decided that they needed to be features in their own right.

A chandlier provides a beautiful focal point, and is even lovelier against the pale blue-grey ceiling.

The extra long double vainities provides a beautiful display place for flowers and art.

The beautiful lucite ball chair (from the fabulous Visual Vamp at perch) provided just the right scale for the petite home owners and the right sparkle.

Togther these elements: creamy paint, sumptous fabrics, and sparkling accessories provides a soothing retreat for a busy couple.

From 60's ranch to Itailian villia: a trompe l'oeil bath redo.

Before: A white box with an acoustical tile ceiling

After: Faux plaster walls, a faux tin ceiling, faux bois vanity, and Old World inspired art and accessories. (Note: we had to leave the old fixture for the moment because it houses the only electrical outlet in the room, and we have not been able to address the issue of moving the outlet.)

The faux tin ceiling consists of squares of Anaglypta embossed wallpaper applied to the ceiling, covered in layers of copper and bronze metallic glazes, and topped with scrapes of ivory paint to suggest rust and peeling paint. I made the working inverted pleat shade out of a poly blend in a metallic copper/chestnut color with gold embroidered fleur de lis.

Barbara already owned the painting and italian plates. I just moved them from other rooms.

I painted the flat front cabinets in a faux bois technique similiar to one described in an earlier post.

Detail of the upper cabinet with Italian landscape scene inspired by plates. I wanted the upper cabinet to blend in to the wall to keep the look light. I also thought that doing the cabinets in different finishes would add to the interest.

Detail of the ceiling.

Knock on (Fake) Wood: a step by step faux bois makeover

Being a decorative painter is something like being a makeup artist: sometimes, I'm there to enhance a good feature, sometimes to downplay a bad one (or, as I diplomatically tell clients, " Girl, there is a whole lot of ugly going on up in here). Sometimes, however, I end up doing both at once, as in this case. The situation: the client whose home before Katrina damage had been very monochromatic (everything, including upholstery, was a light neutral), decided to embrace color in a big way, which she did by painting everything a medium gold from Benjamin Moore, cork. And by everyting, I do mean everyting, including all the trim, the ceilings (actually the ceilings are one shade lighter), doors, and walls. To make the color even more intense, most of the flooring is a pale maple shade that is almost the same color as the wall. After being in the home for several months, she called because the gold was overwhelming her. The floor plan is open, and a complete repaint was not in the budget, so I needed a way to tone down all that gold. I decided that doing a faux bois (French for fake wood) treatment on all of the doors downstairs to match the stained front door wood go a long way toward cutting all that color, while also emphasizing their nice moulding details and panels, thus turning a negative into an opportunity.

I forgot to take a real before picture, but even with the blue tape and finish start, one can see how the doors faded into the wall:

Here is a closeup of the finish on the front door. I used this as my guide. In a faux bois treatment, you layer thin, striated glazes over a basecoat that matches the lighted color in the wood you are mimicing. In this case, the original cork color was a good base. I dry brushed on a darker, slighty redder color. I did not thin down the paint.

In the early stages, perfection is not necessary, and actually works against you. First, keep in mind that you are trying to create a natural effect, therefore, you actually want imperfections and variations: what you are aiming for is all over evenness and balance, but not perfection.

This is how the doors looked at the end of step 1:

Next, repeat the process with a darker paint. I used a dark brown, Black Bean from Sherwin Williams.

In order to get the look you want, you may need to do multiple layers of the darker color. It's important in these steps to follow the grain lines of the different segments of the door. It's also important that there be distinct brush strokes: it's these striations that will eventually mimic graining. There are actual graining tools, but the door I was matching had a fine grain.

I then coated the doors with mutiple layers of stain: A layer of Minwax polyshade Colonial Maple, and then multiple layers of a mix of 3 parts Minwax polyshade to 1 part Colonial maple. Then to reduce the shine to a true satin, a good rubbing with extra fine steel wools. A couple of swipes of Black Bean, and Voila: From paint to wood with no stripping:

A detail of the faux bois finish: This technique is also great for furniture if you don't want to strip it, or if the wood is different species, or has unattractive graining or damage.
If you want the look of wood without painting, I highly recomment two Sherwin Williams colors straight out of the can:

Black Bean for an espresso finish close to Pottery Barn's espresso and French Roast for a color that blends with dark cherry and colonial maple.

From Inspiration to Completion: A faux finish

These are actually after pics, but I just added to them the post, and I don't know how to move them. Sometimes, I really hate blogger.

I am often asked where I get my inspiration from for my finishes. It can come from anywhere. In the case of this dining room, it came from my client's clip files. I have to tell you, this was one of the dream clients and jobs. Not only did she know the effect she wanted, she knew exactly the tones, and she even supplied a picture that she loved from Frontgate catalog: Obviously, the front gate picture is of an exterior stucco wall, not painted sheetrock. However, I thought that I could get a very similar look using just paint. I always prefer to do whatever technique is easiest to reverse, and if I had just stucco, joint compound, or any other texturizing element on the wall, it would take extreme measures to return the walls to a flat, paintable service. Since I just paint, however, a light sanding will remore the heavily textured portions. The walls were originally a dark, olivish taupe. Since I wanted tiny bits of dark showing through the finish to give a stucco/cement look, I left the original paint color for the base coat. Then, I rolled on a mixture of benjamin moore offwhite, taken from the beige ceiling color, with a very long napped roller to give texture. Once this medium beige coat (with bits of the taupe base showing through) was dry, I think rolled on a lighter offwhite to give a dimensional look, highlighted around the windows and door frames with a trowel, and spattered on a little taupe for texture:

A detail: