Updating Some of My Work

This is my fourteenth year owning and running my decorative painting company, Paint It! I am happy to be able to say that I have many repeat clients, some who call me every year to do a little something …or a big something in their home or business. I bring this up because I am now finding myself painting over and/or freshening up my own work in some of my clients homes. Decorative painting techniques and colors go in and out of fashion just like clothing styles, appliance colors, fabric selections, etc. Decorative painting and home decor follow the current trends.

I have to constantly remind myself of this when I am in a home I that I may have done a finish in many years ago and that room has not been updated since. Here is a good example:

This unfortunate tassel and rope stencil was a little something I did…maybe eight years ago? I cringe now when I see it… and there is an identical vignette on the opposite side of the doorway in this dining room. It’s done over a glazed tissue paper finish… also done at the same time. The tissue paper finish has held up very well and the soft, gold tone of the glaze suits this dining room perfectly. My challenge is to figure out how I can remove this dated stenciling, re-glaze the area and have it all blend inconspicuously. I’m going to try priming it out, putting the same base color back on, and then blending in the glaze. I’ll let you know how that all goes.

In the meantime, there is another white elephant in this dining room:

The too small ceiling medallion. Again… I did for this several years ago when there was a much smaller chandelier in place. The entire ceiling has a soft, metallic gold glaze, which is still working well in this room. This European Lace Medallion is a stencil from Royal Design Studios. It worked well with the former chandelier. The new chandelier is much larger, so the medallion is now the wrong scale. I’ve gone over a few options with the homeowners, one being a larger version of this same design. This design is now available, in a larger size, as a Modello™. While that is still an option on the table, the homeowners are leaning toward a faux plaster medallion they found at Home Depot. It’s unfinished and I would leaf it. Again, I’ll be getting back to this, once some decisions have been made.