Thursday, June 4, 2009

Mural for the Dining Room

After moving into my new home and taking a trip back to Italy, I knew that I would be painting a mural some where in my house. The dining room was perfect not only in wall space but there were two columns and an arch to the entry into the dining room that I could tie into the mural.  Wanting to remember what I saw everyday while in Tuscany, the mural would be that of the walled city of Volterra and the Villa I stayed in while there.

My Dining Room is a nice size and has room for the 102” long table that I love for entertaining. The ceiling height is 11’ and has nice crown molding, but other then that, the room was really  boring. Paint would have helped, but a mural, faux treatment to the other walls and a marbleizing treatment to the columns would make it a little more interesting.

This is how it Progressed from what it was to what it is now.

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Plain Walls, out dated swags and side panels, old brass lighting fixture. (and my Boxer, Topper trying to get out of the picture)

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Sorry about this scanned picture, but it does show the work in progress. I had drawn a repeat of the real arch when you enter the dining room and columns to match the real ones.

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 After completing the mural, I moved on to the rest of the walls with a two color wash. 

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After the walls were done the real columns had to be painted, but I couldn’t use the same paint as I did on the walls. I would have to match the colors used for the faux Columns,  with Oils.

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This was the start of the marbleizing with the oils which took longer then the rest of the room and while waiting for paint to dry, it was very nice to sit back and have a glass of Santa Margherita. I guess one night I had a few too many glasses of that product from Italy and painted in a wine glass to sit on the faux ledge.

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Some Wine, anyone??

After a month of living in my paint clothes and in the dining room I was done, well with the painting.

I made a more playful valance to replace the old stuffy stuff and started looking for a new chandelier.

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I did find a fixture that I like, so it was out with the old.

Now I think I will gold leaf the ceiling and change the flooring.

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10 comments:

  1. Hi Joy,

    What a great blog. As an architect, I can really appreciate your work...great job!

    John Cronin

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  2. That dining room is awesome! You did a fabulous job with the Mural. And I totally thought those posts were marble.

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  3. Joy, Awesome! You did a fabulous job with the mural. I totally thought the columns were marble when I first saw them. Gorgeous!

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  4. You did a great job on that mural!~!! I love it. I also have one in my dining room. Thanks for stopping by my blog, don't be a stranger.

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  5. What better reason to paint a mural in your home than to evoke the memory of a time and place that would have otherwise been filed away in your mental archive? Or, worse, forgotten! Joycelyn, you are not only clever and talented - you are intuitively therapeutic. So ..... any other rooms await other memories? - Catherine
    PS: Gold leaf the ceiling? I can't wait!

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  6. So beautiful what you did! The mural is gorgeous! Thanks for your birthday comment today. You and I may have had this conversation already and maybe it didn't work but here's a different URL to hopefully update your blogroll

    Http://feeds2.feedburner.com/colourmehappyblog

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  7. Ahhhh, I get to feast my eyes on that mural yet again! So lovely, thanks for your comment :)

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  8. Joy, every time you so generously comment on my blog, I get to see this beautiful dining room of yours again :)
    Thank you for your thoughtful comment!!
    Have a great day!
    x
    Maria

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  9. You are so talented, amazing work on the mural.wow Love it...
    Love the change to the window with the valance, so zen...
    the court yard outside the window, looks so interesting with the brick work walls (if I am seeing correctly)what a nice view when dining...
    Regards, Carol Ann

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  10. I was going through some modern designs on Dining Room Decor and I found amazing collection.

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