December 16th, 2007

Fassatt Fantasy

I was entertaining the fantasy this morning that I might someday actually have time to take up needlepoint again. Back in the day (way back!) I was quite handy with pins, needles, embroidery hoops and the like. My grandmothers looked forward to their new pairs of knitted slippers, complete with pom-poms, every Christmas in my late grade school years.

A visit to Ehrman Tapestry led to a visit to the great Kaffe Fassatt’s website. I adore this man’s style and have several of his beautiful, inspiring books on my shelf. Now I am not only fantasizing about needlepoint projects….

Kaffe-Needlepoint.jpg

But also knitting….

Kaffe-Knitting.jpg

and most especially mosaic….

Kaffe-Mosaic-1.jpg
Kaffe-Mosaic-2.jpg

A girl can dream.

 

December 6th, 2007

Laid to Rest

It’s done! I had nightmares that something would go horribly wrong and my million dollar cork floor would get ruined somehow. Well, it didn’t REALLY cost a million dollars, but it definitely wasn’t cheap and we had another big chunk invested in labor and materials, AND there have been quite a few BIG things going awry lately, BUT I think we are safe. Knock wood.

Applying-Modellos.jpg

Once we got the whole assembly line thing down we were cranking out 35 tiles (on a good day). Richard and Michelle from our staff are pulling out the last pieces of the pattern to ready them for the final stenciled layer.

Laying-cork-Modello-floor.jpg

Here the trusty installers are pressing the last tiles into place. Good thing THEY were good as we used all 120 tiles that we made. Phew!

Final-cork-Modello-floor.jpg

If you’ve never walked on a cork floor, let me tell you it’s heaven. Especially when all your other floors are concrete. It feels like you just put brand new gel inserts in your shoes! I’m so in love, I’ve ordered some more for my home office floor where I think I will do a very large “stained-in-place” meandering cherry blossom branch. Then we will see how it holds up to my greyhound’s toenails.

December 5th, 2007

Ideas are Blossoming

I’ve been shopping for wall art recently and have found http://www.art.com/ to be a treasure trove. You can get everything from very inexpensive (but nice) prints to fine giclee prints, have them frame it as you want it and deliver to your door. I was also noticing this morning that it is a great place for inspiration for beautiful color combos, interesting textures and combinations of motifs. Some assorted blossom prints for your pleasure.

art.com
art.com
Almond-Branches-in-Bloom-San-Remy-c1890-Print-C12838878.jpg

The Van Gogh print above is my personal favorite. Amazing colors!

Mmmm. Mmmm.

Modello Floor-Detail.jpg

We did a SkimStone “carpet” to finish of the Gingko Leaf office, using Modello EasAll104 in the center. I LOVE this trellis pattern. Originally, there was to be an elaborate decorative border overlaid in the raspberry outer border but we liked the relatively simplicity so much as this point we decided to stop here. With everything already going on in the room and yet more just outside the door, I think it was a good call!

Modello Floor-and-Wall.jpg

This shows how it relates in size, scale and color to the wall finish. I custom-tinted the green on the floor to match the paint color on the wall using their French Mint and Yellowstone colors. It’s almost spot on. Just so’s you know, there is all that empty space at the bottom of the wall because it will be filled up with a row of filing cabinets. Sigh.

December 2nd, 2007

Celestial Powder Bath

I thought it was going to be so great having all these new building projects to post on this blog. Problem is, I’m so busy with the projects and dealing with our move-in deadline I can’t seem to find much time to post! With that excuse out of the way, here’s a room that’s almost done that uses the new Celestial Leaf we are carrying. It is WAY cool!

Modello-Celestial-Leaf-1.jpg

We actually started the first layer back during our Metallic Wall Finishes class. Carol and Cathy are putting the Celestial Leaf on randomly after we troweled on two colors of Lusterstone. The randomness comes from sponging on the gold leaf size. A few weeks later I got back in there and troweled some more layers of Lusterstone on to somewhat “bury” the leaf and then applied the first Modello layers (EasMot 118/119 cut in two layers).

Modello-Celestial-Leaf-2.jpg

We use three different colors of the Celestial Leaf: Dawn, Moonbeam and Twilight. This new leaf comes from Italy and they have developed a treatment process for the composition gold leaf that creates wonderful, subtle color variations. Shown here are Twilight and Moonbeam.

Modello Celestial-Leaf-3.jpg

The second layer of Modellos is applied right over the first to make it easy to line up, sized again and more leaf applied in a contrasting color. This final design design on the right shows a Moonbeam and Twilight combo. It’s kind of unusual that the first layer of leaf actually blushes through the second a bit. I’ll be toning and sealing with a thin layer of Rich Brown Stain and Seal and then need to figure out something wonderful for the bottom half of the wall to cover up the horrid looking laminate.