The travels that inspire.

After last weeks posting my Dining room Mural, I took some time looking back at pictures from Tuscany that I took. There is some thing that draws visitors to just looking and taking pictures of Doors. These are just a very small collection of some of the doors from Volterra, the place depicted in the mural.

  Love the carving of these doors, I had to have a close look and a touch.

This one has new plantings.

This one has this wonderful color.

This is a back door, seeing only the shutter doors.

Store fronts intermingle with residents, wouldn’t you love having fresh flowers next door to your home?

Or, a restaurant with this quaint out door dining?

Or, fresh Produce displayed every morning, right down the stone paved street?

Is this their version of Boar’s head meats?

Of course there is always laundry day, it is part of living there.

What a happy site to see the Stars and Stripes at this store front.

Back home to the Villa, it has a more modern Iron and glass door with a center lever with lock. I do prefer the older wood doors but this door will get you to look at how it works and locks.

Hope you enjoyed the tour and the small part of their every day life.

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.

     

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

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.

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

 

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.

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.

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.

 

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.

Technorati Tags: mural,marbleizing,faux painting

 

Taking time off in Louisiana

Taking time off in Louisiana

This past month I took some time off to visit with friends and family in Louisiana. Included in this visit was a class reunion of sorts, with 12 close friends that have been together, some as far back as grade school. One is a very talented, soul sister, named Kitty.

A year or two back she had a wonderful home built in an area that is one fine planned development. From estate homes to quaint shops for shopping, Kitty's home is in a section that has zero lot lines, called Rosewalk. It is a charming neighborhood comprised of eighteen French Quarter-style homes that front a plaza.

At the time of my visit, Kitty was having many wrongs made right with her home so there were painters and trim carpenters working in the house with all their stuff every where and furniture moved out of their way. I did take pictures but will have to revisit when all the work is done and I can take better photos of her wonderful home.

Here are a few of the "Work In Progress" pictures.

You enter the home through iron gates to a covered narrow court that Kitty has furnished with some wonderful pieces. I love the lanterns.

Yes, this wonderful mirror is outside, exposed to the heat and humidity of Louisiana. You can just see the entry front French doors in the reflection of the mirror.

This Statuary stands guard in a sweet way at the entry to greet guest.

Passing through the covered entry court you enter the large open court yard with a pool , fountain, and a out door kitchen that Kitty's husband Billy cooks up some of the best south Louisiana's dishes.
Second story Balconies over look the court yard, this being the smallest one.




Entry hall with view of court yard and stair case. I love this marble and iron table.

Up the main stairway Kitty found this wonderful very old, large trumeau style panel. Even with some small parts missing it is one of my favorite pieces in her home.

In the Living room is one of many fireplaces, this one made on site out of concrete.

Other side of Living room has these great gilded chairs.

This Keeping room off the Kitchen was having some work done to the walls so the furniture was out of place but I wanted to show the Marble fireplace, the mortar wash over the brick wall, and the second stairway. Most of the furniture in this room has slip covers.

Another view of the Keeping room with another Trumeau mirror.

OK, Kitty is going to kill me for putting this picture in, but I just had to show part of the Kitchen. It is far from being staged, but as I said earlier, there was workers running all over the house that day and I am hoping to make another trip when I can take better pictures. This Kitchen is so unique in it's placement it is worthy of a post all to it's self.

Another fireplace, this one in the Master Bedroom.

I love everything about this Master. Again, work being done in this room as I took the picture. If you look real close up in the right hand corner you can see one of the painters.

The floors are old wood painted an off white and all the colors in this Master are the very soft, pale pinks and blues. Note; you can really see the painter in this photo, but I had to show this fabulous armoire.

The cabinet treatment in Kitty's master bath is as soft in color and as beautiful as the Bedroom. I love how she applied the plaster motif to the door fronts that you can also find over door casements through out the home.

I just had to show you these sweet French upholstered beds that are in one of the guest rooms, I wouldn't have a problem staying here for a night.


Another view of the guest room.

This is one view of the bath that goes with the guess room, like I said before I could sure stay here.

I hope you enjoyed seeing Kitty's Home, she is one very talented lady. Please leave your comments I would love to here from you.

The Changing Tiger

A friend of mine purchased a new home almost a year ago. All the rooms needed something done to them, some needing more work then others. One of the rooms that was only getting new carpet was going to be perfect for her grandsons and came with a wonderful mural painted on all four walls. She was so excited and knew her grandsons were going to love it. There was however one small part of this Mural that disturbed her and anyone that really looked at it , it had to do with the way the Tiger in the jungle mural looked, so mean, showing these big white teeth. I'm pretty sure the grandsons would have had nightmares. And to have it over the crib,,, Oh My,, that just wouldn't do.
So she asked if I could do something to it's face and make it sweeter looking. "Just Change it, Please!"

While working on the rest of the house with Carpenters and Painters, I did take some time, to repaint the Tiger.

He now has a much sweeter face, and no more snarling look at the grand babies.

Now

I think this Change did him some good, What do you think? Leave a comment to let me know.

A New Year for New Changes

Another year starts, and as everyone does at the start, dreams of all the things we will do to change ones life, surroundings or habits, come to the surface. Oh we are so excited to start new, only to wake up and continue with the same old stuff.

This is my first post and "The Changing Look of Friends" is how I feel at this stage of my life. The "Friends" part is anyone or anything that have been part of my life. "Friends" can be the people I have known for years that I will never part with. "Friends"can be the people that leave your life, and the ones that come into your life. But the Friends that I will be writing about mostly are Things in my life that surround me. Be it the six pack of Cokes I drink a day to the sofa in the living room. My home is my friend and everything that is in it. Things we hold on to, the bad habits we keep, the day to day same-o that need to change when you are faced with a change to your life that you had no control over.

My forced change was due to a Divorce, and no I'm not going to write about that, what I am going to write about is what changes I have made to make my life better, starting with my new home.

I worked as a designer many years ago with a firm that had a name very close to my blogs name. Now I'm using my talents and my love of design to start fresh with new surroundings. It will be slow going, but it will be a chance to Change many things in my life.

There are many women out there that are face with the same situation that I am faced with and I am hoping for us to share our changes together in what we make of our surroundings, our Home where we live alone and enjoy every second of that freedom.