Tag Archives: antiquing

Painting and Decorating Architectural Fragments

Chalk painted and antiqued ornamental board

Creating something from nothing

I was coming back from a decorative painting job out in the Hamptons and I came across this wonderful old antique shop named Lloyds in Eastport, New York. I had passed this store many times before and finally – I had a little bit of time to go in and take a look. The store is a lot larger than it appears from the outside – and there are two large floors full of antiques. Just what I needed – a ton of stuff to choose from! Anyway, I fell in love with a couple of things that I just had to pick them up (I only had about 20 minutes to peruse because I had another appointment to go to). (more…)

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10 Comments | Posted in Annie Sloan's chalk paint, Decorative Finishes, interior design, Makeovers, Paint, Tutorials

Fast and Beautiful DIY Finishes for Accessories: Part 2

What I love about reviving accessories that are sitting around my house collecting dust is that it’s such a quick fix and that it saves you money.  All you are investing is a little time and some paint.  

Here are some accessories that I revamped in my home that you can update too…

Miss Mustand Seed's Typewriter Milk Paint on an old book with a Royal Design Studio stencil

A few months ago, I went to Robyn Story’s blog and noticed that she had used Annie Sloan Chalk Paint to decorate some books she had.  I thought that this was a great idea – but I decided to try it with Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint in Typewriter.  Here’s how I did it.  (more…)

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2 Comments | Posted in Annie Sloan's chalk paint, Decorative Finishes, Makeovers, Paint, Tutorials

Easy Ways to Gild and Use Metallics on Moldings and Furniture

I may be impetuous most of the time but there’s one thing that I do that involves some level of organizing and planning – I make samples before going all out on a color or technique for a wall, molding or furniture. This is especially helpful if you are new to using a product.  Investing a small amount of time in testing a color, product or technique on a sample board or a piece of molding – will save you not only money but a lot of time as well. This small sample can also be useful when you go shopping.  When you’re hunting for fabrics etc, it’s easy to tote around a 3 inch molding with the color you just painted your coffee table with.

Decorative molding sample with pearl metallic and gold

Pearl base with gold metallic paint on design, then pearl stippled over it

Using Gold and Pearl Metallics: Above is a sample I did a few years ago for a client in NYC. I had to do a different finish on his crown moldings because he neglected to tell me that the moldings had about 100 layers of paint on them! You need a smooth surface for metallic paints to look great.  I wound up using a Sandstone texture on them and I made them look like limestone moldings.

Nina Campbell wallpaper with pearl and gold molding

This Nina Campbell wallpaper and my molding might make a beautiful powder room or small entryway design

Flash Gilding:  This is a gold leafing technique where you put the adhesive size on here and there (not on the entire piece) and it’s typically done with Schiabin – which are the leftover skewings from creating gold leaf.  You can use gold leaf also but you will have a lot of waste.

Flash gilding on a decorative molding

After the leaf is on and dry, you burnish it with a soft cloth first and then with a brush to get it into crevices and to wipe away the leaf that did not stick. I toned this particular sample with Dark Brown Faux Color from Faux Effects. This effect looks beautiful on carved moldings and furniture.

Nina Campbell wallpaper with flash gilded moldings

For the more dramatic, this color Nina Campbell wallpaper and a flash gilded crown molding

I had tried using metallic foils on moldings once before – at a trade show 5 or 6 years ago – so I felt it was time to do some samples with it.  I had a warm red molding collecting dust in my studio – so I figured I would try some gold on that first.

Before and after.  Leather red molding and then with the added metallic foil

For less decorative moldings, I usually just tip or highlight the edges and I make just one edge a little thicker with whatever metallic I’m using. I didn’t want it too heavy, so I sanded back a bit to distress the metallic foil.  For the thin lines, I either use a very small brush to apply the size (I used Wundasize) – and sometimes I even use the tip of my finger to apply the size. When the size comes to tack, you apply the metallic foil – with the shiny side up.  Then you apply pressure with a fairly stiff brush (I used a stencil brush) and transfer the foil to the molding. You can then antique it, like I did.

leather red molding with metallic foil, antiqued

I toned the molding with some eggplant and dark brown glaze

You can choose to have more of the gold showing but I prefer a more aged look.  I first toned it with Eggplant Faux Color from Faux Effects – but I wound up adding some Dark Brown Faux Color to mellow it a bit more.

Mood board with Robert Allen, Scalamandre and Kravet fabrics.

I pulled together some fabrics that could be used in a relaxed room with my molding sample – perhaps as a coffee table, entertainment unit or bookcase

And finally, I wanted to try the foil on a more ornate piece that was lighter in color – to see if I could get close to the flash gilding sample. Well, I learned something by doing this.  The sample I did with the metallic foil came out hardly looking like there was any gold on it at all after I toned it!  So, with lighter colors – when you are antiquing – you should put more foil on than you think.

Metallic foil on this sconce that I use as a bookend

After antiquing, you could hardly see the foil

With metallic foil, it’s very easy to go back and add more foil to a piece.  And, if you add too much, you can sand it back and antique it to push it back a bit – so I find it’s very forgiving.

Antiqued metallic foil on an ornate molding

This foil technique came close to the flash gilding technique

If the foil is too flashy, you can wax it with dark wax, which will tone it down. I’ll probably do this.

Hope you enjoyed my metallics post.  You might also enjoy my posts about using metallic foils in artwork and gilding and antiquing a Swedish clock. I love using metallics on moldings and furniture so much that I have to hold myself back sometimes so as not to do it “too much.”  Let me know how you are using metallics and foils.

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Between Naps on the Porch

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5 Comments | Posted in interior design, Tutorials

How to Create an Heirloom: Easy Way to Add Years to New Furniture

Sometimes you buy a piece of furniture that you love but when you get it home it just doesn’t seem to “go” with your home.  This happens to me every now and again – unless I’m buying an antique.  I find that by giving it a little bit of antiquing helps quite a bit.

Swedish Mora clock from Howard Miller before antiquing

Before: Our Swedish clock before I antiqued it

I purchased a lovely Swedish clock that was reasonably priced – especially when I compared it to the real deal antiques that I’ve seen online. The all white clock just looked out of place in my traditional home.  So – I got to work, giving it a bit of aging.

  • First, I used a clear coat (Aquaseal from Faux Effects) on the entire piece. This seals the surface very well and ensures a better glaze.  I let that dry.
  • Then I added some adhesive size to some of the the edges of the clock – wherever I wanted to see some gold leafing that was fading.  I let it come to tack (about a half hour or so) and then I ripped up some Dutch Metal Gold Leaf and put it on haphazardly wherever I put the size. Let dry.
  • Next I mixed up some browns and golds into my glaze mixture (I used Faux Creme clear from Faux Effects) and set about antiquing the piece.
  • Finally, after everything was dry, I mixed up some brown and dark brown colorant and dipped a chipbrush into it (and offloaded onto a paper towel) – and then I drybrushed here and there and on the edges to give it more age.

I loved the simplicity of it – just a gentle aging.  But as I lived with it what annoyed me was the fact that the clockface still looked new! So I got to work aging the clockface.  I just used some glaze that I had leftover from another project that was similar to the glaze I used for the body of the clock – putting it on with a chipbrush and then smoothing it with a badger brush (but you can use any soft bristled brush that you have on hand).

Swedish Mora clock undergoing a transformation

During the clock face aging

"Swedish clock" "Gustavian clock" "Antiquing" "DIY"

Closeup of our clock

Now the clock looks like it belongs in my home. Everything in my home shows it’s age – including me, sorry to say!  I may try to find an an antique clockface to really make it look like an heirloom.  And I may do some handpainting on it to give it a little more character.

"Swedish clock" "Mora clock" "Gustavian clock" "Antiquing" "DIY"I hope you enjoyed looking at my project! If you’d like to know more about the Venetian Plaster wall finish in the entryway, click here.

Sharing this with: Funky Junk Interiors; Between Naps on the Porch; Be Colorful; Home Stories from A to Z; BoogieBoard Cottage; Miss Mustardseed; French Country Cottage; Cherished Bliss

 

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Evolution of a Powder Room: Removing Yet Another 70s Era Wallpaper

When I married my husband, I moved into a house with a lot of 70s type wallpaper.  For a decorative artist like myself – that’s like being in purgatory (or worse!!!).  Now, I love wallpaper…well-done, handpainted or beautifully textured or patterned wallpaper.  But – the living room, the powder room, the kitchen, the dining room – the upstairs baths and all the bedrooms had 70s era wallpaper….and I just couldn’t live with it. So, slowly but surely, I began to remove all of it. I will feature more of the before and afters in coming months.  I only have one last wall of wallpaper to remove – a camouflage paper (spare me) in what will become a nursery for my new grandchildren.

 

Here’s a picture of our powder room right after I did the last transformation…first removing all the wallpaper, then oil priming, painting and doing an embossed stencil and tissue finish.  I say “last” transformation because the finish was the same – only the room was, at first, painted an antiqued gunmetal silver – which I really loved.  But as I was re-doing my home, the colors of adjacent rooms were getting warmer and warmer – so the silver just didn’t go with the palette I was coming up with.  I chose a softer and warmer metallic color – called Veridine (from Faux Effects). Then I gave it an antique bronze glaze. I covered the switchplates also – to give it a more uniform look.

 

"powder room" "faux finishing" "embossed stenciling" "raised stencil design"
My inspiration photo done by Melanie Royals of Royal Design Studio
Here is the first color of the powder room finish – a gun metal silver
The vanity and countertop were really horrendous and way past their prime – but my husband didn’t want to buy anything new because the vanity hid all the pipes underneath (which also include some pipes for the washing machine in an adjacent room – don’t ask!). This powder room has 7 sides – it’s really an oddity and I could have gutted the whole thing and started over – but that would have been too much $$ for my husband to handle.  So, I made do!  I sanded and primed…painted and glazed…and clearcoated the vanity and countertop and it’s held up beautifully over the years.
I don’t have a before picture of the powder room – but I do have a snippet of the wallpaper.  Was it horrible?…not really.  But it was dated and it did’t really say anything about me and the spirit I wanted my home to portray.  This room and the wallpaper were someone else’s idea of beauty – not mine.  So, I had to change it.
It was perfectly nice – but it didn’t say “me.” And coupled with the peeling, orange yellow vanity and countertop – it had to go!
About the Wall Finish:  The one thing that is difficult about doing this finish is the amount of time and patience it takes to do it.  It’s not an overnight sensation…and trust me – I needed a shrink during and after the process.  When you are doing an embossed, raised stencil on a wall – you first have to stencil most of it on the wall first in a light tone.  Why?  Because when you do anything raised/embossed on a large surface – you can’t easily go from design to design in a row…because the plaster or whatever you are using to make the design raised – is still wet.  So, you have to jump to another section that’s dry in order to do your next raised/embossed area.  So, in this design that I decided on for this room, I first had to make the design “stripes” level and equidistant – I had to stencil just about everything in a tint on the wall before I could trowel any material through the stencil to make the raised design. I hope I didn’t lose anyone here yet!! You also have to do this to make sure your vertical design is level and not “off.”  So – it’s a process…that takes a lot of time. 
Whenever I price this for a client, they always look at me a little crazy because they see the finished product and think “Oh – that’s beautiful…I want it.”  But when I explain how much time and precision it takes to pull it off…they back off.  Only interior designers so far have said “No problem – I love it.  Let’s do it!”
A closer look: You’ll see the slight wrinkled texture on the wall.  You don’t “have” to do this…but I laid gently wrinkled gift tissue over the entire wall as I was painting the color on the wall.  One of the reasons I did this was because my surface was not 100% perfect – it showed some leftover wallpaper lining and I just wanted to give the wall a little extra texture.  If your walls are perfect – you do not have to do this step and I wish that I could have skipped it!!
A closer look at the wall finish – see the slight wrinkled texture?
One very important note about doing an embossed stencil design with a tissue finish:  Once your tissue is on, you have to make sure that the tissue lies flat next to the raised part of the design.  I had to flatten out the tissue many times and I also had to pin prick some of the bubbles that this finish naturally creates.  Did I get every single one perfect?  No – but overall it looks good and you can see every part of the design.  Next time I do this, I won’t choose such a small stencil design – you can see it above to the left of the larger design.  That was a nightmare to get all the tissue to lay down around the design.  So – don’t do this!  Choose larger designs to emboss – much easier!
And another tip – if you have to go through some curved surfaces like I did…pick a simpler design!!
For the vanity and countertop:  I first sanded any chipped spots, then oil base primed it and then painted the base in Off White from Faux Effects.  To antique it, I used a brown and gold glaze. The countertop – I sanded it (A-LOT!!!) and then I oil base primed it in a tinted dark brown primer – and then I did several coats of Modern Masters’ Statuary Bronze.  I then did several coats of Faux Effects Satin topcoat called Varnish Plus.  I cannot tell you how much I love this product.  I used it on this countertop and while I was re-doing my kitchen, this powder room became my “slop sink” when I was doing any other type of painting or cleaning or washing dishes.  The countertop stayed clean and beautiful after a TON of punishment!!!  Enough said – go buy it!!!!

For the interior section of the vanity, I painted it the Veridine color and then stenciled Royal Design Studio’s Small Victorian Grille.  Modern Master’s Statuary Bronze surrounds it – but I sanded it back to age it.  I kept the same knobs – only I painted them in the Statuary Bronze.  I plan on changing them soon.  Anyone have any suggestions?  In my kitchen I have the French Birdcage ones in oil rubbed bronze and I love then – so that’s a possibility.  But I would love some other ideas.

Future Changes: I am also going to do some other changes to the room.  I’d love to put something different in that center panel in the vanity.  A handpainted monkey or pineapple?  Or is that overkill? I also want to perhaps get a new stone or granite top for the vanity…plus a new sink, faucet and light fixture.  I would also love to do a raised design on the panel right below the countertop – I think it’s calling out for something!  And finally, I’d love to do something special to the ceiling.  Right now it’s a mid tone sage green, which is nice – but it needs some pizzaz! I’d like to add some moldings as well on the top but with 7 sides…it’s a challenge.  I had though of spray painting a thick rope in bronze and then attaching it.
Would love to hear from all of you on what you’d like me to do with the room…and then I’ll post the changes.
Thanks for coming by to see this project! For another project I did with raised stenciling, Click Here.
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16 Comments | Posted in Portfolio

Gold Leafing and Antiquing a Fireplace Mantle

When I finally convinced my husband that we needed a kitchen renovation, I figured that if I got him that far…let me see if I can also get another room added on – a great room, off the kitchen.  Amazingly he said “yes!”  This was a few years ago – and I have been working on this great room since then.  It’s been a work in progress.Since my laptop is in the repair shop (my hard drive was damaged…so I won’t have access to a lot of my pictures til next week or so), I’d like to share the pictures I do have to show you the work I did on the room.

First Incarnation…

I was happy to finally have a fireplace and mantle in my home – yippee, something else to decorate! (And that tree was supposed to be on our deck then – sorry about that one). But having the mantle so stark white really wasn’t doing it for me.  I had done a nice sueded plaster on the walls in a cinnamon hue – very Ralph Lauren-ish kind of look and feel (without it being Ralph Lauren material!)…and I loved the warmth of it. 

So – what’s a girl to do to make it all come together?  Add some decorative onlays, gold leaf them and then antique the entire mantle.

 Mantle…After
The gold leafing (or gilding) of the onlay gave the mantle more distinction and character, I think.  And the antiquing gave the onlay a nice patina – and now the tone of the painted wood blends so much better with the finish on the wall. Before the white just shouted at me – I am so much happier with this look.
Closeup of gilded and antiqued onlay
GILDING STEP-BY-STEP…
  • I first painted the onlay with a yellow gold paint – this will help you out later…because not every piece of leaf will stick!
  • I used Gold Leaf sheets from Michael’s – nothing fancy. But after you put on the gold leaf size (the glue that makes the leaf stick to what you are gilding which you can get at Michael’s also) – let it come to a tack. Don’t put the gold leaf on when the size is still wet. Never place your finger on the size to check if it’s ready – use your index finger knuckle to check it.
  • Once it’s ready, place the sheets on your object and tamp them down softly with a soft artist’s brush. Once everything is on your onlay (or whatever you are gilding), take some cheesecloth and start to take and brush away the gold leafing that didn’t stick.  You can use an artist’s brush to get into any crevices etc.
  • Once that’s done, use your cheesecloth to burnish the gold leaf – you’ll begin to see that it starts to get shinier.  Now – the leaf sold at Michael’s and elsewhere is not real gold leaf…so the leaf will look a bit too brassy.  But after you antique it (as I did – with the rest of the mantle), it will lessen the shininess.  In addition, I took an artist’s brush and took some dark brown tint and brushed it on to age and darken it. 
  • Optional: You can also use a dark wax (Annie Sloan’s Dark Wax or Liberon Wax etc) to do this as well. This will protect and seal your work
So – hope you enjoyed this.  If you’d like to see a few more pics of this up close…click the links below to my website. 

Closeup of the Mantle Finish 

Closeup of the Gilded Onlay 

Happy Painting!!

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13 Comments | Posted in interior design, Tutorials