Armoire Completed

Well, for those of you in this business… you know what a pain in the butt Thanksgiving through Christmas can be. Lots of juggling with the schedule to fit everyone in on time or to fill time slots from clients who end up postponing their work until after the start of the new year. That said, I’m busy working on 2 ceilings in one of my favorite homes. I’ll post more about that tomorrow. Right now I need to bring you up to date with the last house I was working in. After finishing the Family Room I had an Armoire to paint for them, so did that last week. You will recognize my Family Room walls in the background of some of the pictures.

Here’s the "Before" picture. The Armoire was painted once, a long time ago, by someone else. This is the color it was when they bought it several years ago. It had been sitting in their garage until recently. The walls in the background are also the "Before" picture.
See how bland…dull and boring everything is in it’s neutral state.

Ah… a much warmer, inviting look for both walls and armoire, don’t you think? This is the best "After" picture I have right now of this room because it is still awaiting Marc’s magic touch with some new window treatments, furniture and accessories. But… back to the armoire. A flat screen tv sill go in the top portion, so little of that interior will be visible. And of course… the drop cloth will be gone! 😉

Here is the door detail. The inserts of the door panels, the 2 bottom drawers, and the side panels are all done with plaster. Once dry, the plaster is glazed with an umber to look like leather. The stencil design is raised from troweling the plaster through the stencil and then glazing. The entire piece is waxed. This stencil design is one of Melanie Royals, but I do not have the info about it on hand at the moment. I will try to insert a link later.

The drawer, without knob, also has a raised design. This was a free stencil inserted in a trade magazine. The stencil is by LaserExcel.

The side panels are done with the faux leather finish, but with the addition of some bronzed lines to form a diamond pattern.

The top of the armoire also has 3 raised designs, one center and one on each side. Again…free stencils from LaserExcel. Over the years I have amassed quite the collection of their free stencils that are found in trade magazines. Their small size works well on furniture or fabric.