Feeding your soul, one beautiful morsel at a time...

  If you look through the arch, you can just make out the medallion on the ceiling in the next room.  Yup. that's the one I showed you last week.  Same house, next room, which happens to be a little walk-through butlers pantry, between the kitchen and dining room.  The original plan was that it would have a barrel vault ceiling, but other details in this rebuild job took priority, and ate the budget for this.

Trompe l'oeil plaster detail and sky ceiling above scumbled walls.

Jodi still wanted her sky, with some sort of architectural detail, though. Since I couldn't really fool anyone into believing a nine foot ceiling was barrel vaulted, I brought the sky down the walls to about where the vault would have been, to at least create the feel of it, then added a trompe l'oeil plaster moulding. Once the cabinets are complete and the chandelier in, I'll post a full picture of this little jewel box of a room.

It only looks 3-D!

Sometimes, the details we badly want in decorating our homes just don't fit in the financial reality we live with.  Paint and patience can often give you something just as good, and maybe even better, than what you were wishing for.  Even hiring me, this paint treatment saved Jodi a bundle.  If you want to tackle this yourself, but haven't painted something like it before, check out The Painted House Revisited, by Graham Rust.  He includes a great tutorial for this type of trompe l'oeil plaster.  It takes practice, but using artists acrylics, you can keep refining your shadows until you get it to pop into 3-D.  You can, by the way, also sculpt this from the paperclay that I have mentioned in previous blog posts, which, honestly, I think is a lot easier!

I've had people raise their eyebrows at putting this level of detail in a small room like this, a closet, or a bathroom.  I think this is precisely where these things feel the most luxurious and pampering, though.  Have you ever come across vintage clothes with exquisitely sewn linings of beautiful cloth, or opened a book to see gorgeous endpapers, and experienced the pleasure of the unnecessary detail?  For me, it's these little details that add layers of perfection to every day living, so I take the time to create them for myself, and I love doing them for clients who delight in the extraordinary, as well.  I hope you'll let yourself enjoy such things in your own home.  Beauty is not a frivolous extra.  Honoring yourself, and the Divinity within you, with beautiful surroundings feeds your soul!

My portfolio can be viewed at theartofthehome.com.

Comments or questions can be left by clicking on the word "comments" below.  Even if you're a die hard D-I-Y sort, and would never hire anyone like me to have all the fun, I'd love to hear from you.  Heaven knows I can't paint all the walls out there, and I don't mind sharing my secrets.