Raw walls are a thing of beauty...

One of my favorite issues of Metropolis magazine is the April ’09 issue. It features the Rough Luxe Hotel that just opened in London. When Rabih Hage, the architect chosen to rehab the 1820’s Georgian home, saw the plaster walls after removing the wallpaper and paint layers, he fell in love with the beauty of the rough hewn walls and their resulting patina qualities. He designed the décor around each room’s walls, combining different textures to complement the whole.

 Now how cool is that?

  

Rough Luxe Hotel guest room

  

Rough Luxe Hotel- another guest room

The Studio in Photos

For those of you who have asked to see what the Great Lakes Decorative Arts Studio looks like, here it is!

The Studio is located in the former Lake Erie Screw Factory in Lakewood, Ohio. It is a 2  minute drive from I90. The wonderful old factory houses over 50 various sized artisan studios. We hold an Open House twice a year, which is when most of these photos were taken. The studio is divided into two areas, the classroom and the work room. I keep the work room private; it is filled with products, works in progress, tools, ladders and anything else you can think of!

When I moved in...

After a little lime plaster and rust

Welcome to the Open House!

Coming into the classroom area

Here is the wall of finishes... in several pics

Finishes...

Wall of finishes- two

Wall of finishes- three

Wall of finishes- four

The other long wall

In an upcoming post, I'll tell you a bit about that gorgeous Art Deco screen that you see in the first photo.

HGTV August 19, 2009 11pm

This is when the show, My Big Amazing Renovation,  will air.

I was privileged to be selected as one of the artists chosen to take part in the renovation. My contributions included a medallion / border ceiling design in the homeowner's sitting room and transforming ugly, gray cinder blocks into a continuation of the existing brick wall. 

Before:

 

After:



Here is the ceiling:



I hope you catch the show as there are so many fabulous finishes and green solutions in the home. Inspiring artists...

Pink, orange and crimson

are quite the popular combo at the moment. Especially during the summer months, I see this color composition everywhere.  Flowers look great combined in these colors. In a home, this mixture can be a tad overwhelming, but accessories can be used to incorporate the colors with little investment.

Case in point- check out this gorgeous wedding bouquet:

No one creates a better bouquet then Pieter Bouterse!

May I digress again?

We have a new puppy!

Our 9 week old little girl puppy is named Bella Bouterse. She is a Standard Schnauzer, ultimately growing to about 35 to 40 pounds. Not exactly a lap dog, so I am enjoying her small-ness for now.

Here she is, looking "innocent":

And here she is, about to make a quick dash away into the forbidden areas of the yard:

Talk about cute and intelligent.... She'll be keeping us on our toes.

My daughter's wedding photos!

Finally!

I have organized Beth and Alan Cafferkey's wedding photos. My pretty daughter married her sweetheart on July 17, 2009.

 

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Amethyst and the color purple

I just opened the September '09 issue of  House Beautiful and discovered the color amethyst  in their Everywhere We Look column. 

I just finished my living room with this amethyst metallic silk texture with a damask stencil done in a tone-on-tone. The walls were first painted cream. I then added the amethyst texture panels and made them into "framed" pieces with small moldings.

TaaDaa! I now have artwork. Some I will leave as is, some will receive our collected art pieces. 

 Before the molding:

The finished walls:

Turns out that the folks in Pompei in the first century also liked the color amethyst. This photo is of a wall from Pompei (now in the Met):

 

Also in the same issue, there was an interesting article called "Confessions of a House Painter" on page 56.  His answers were spot on!