A fine dining experience...

Chinoiserie (that's fancy for "in the Chinese style", and usually refers to walls decorated with branchy formal trees with birds) dining room.

When I met Anita a couple of months ago, the house she and her family had moved into in October was all white, except a couple of pink walls.  Now, I'm a fan of pink, and I even have a dark pink kitchen that leans toward an old sugary-rosy mauve, but this dining room was a sad, dreary mauve.  It was the kind of color that makes you think of the old auntie who insists on perfect table manners, while boring you to near-death, with stories of the funerals she attended last week.  Ugh!  Anita wears beautiful clear colors, and she is one of those women who actually seems to glow when she smiles, so this house didn't seem to suit her at all...yet.

Dining room before

Though keeping things a little lighter in most of the house, Anita wanted a deeper color in the dining room, and had pictures of several jewel toned dining rooms, pulled from magazines.  By the time we sorted it all out, the red ended up being an accent color in the foyer, and the mossy green an accent in the family room, so this left a rich peacock blue.  Looking through my clipping files, she pulled out several versions of chinoiserie, something she hadn't even thought of doing.  Tempting a gardener with leafy designs in March, in Minnesota, is perhaps some sort of decorator fraud, but I swear it wasn't premeditated!  Anyway, she asked me to paint her chinoiserie as a tree of life, beginning under the window, and branching to each side. Three chickadees live amongst it's leaves, and two have escaped to fly around the room.  Much livelier, don't you think?

This little chickadee headed for the kitchen...

This little chickadee stayed home...

...and this little chickadee winged it to the opposite side of the room!

The peacock color, which was custom mixed, carries into the foyer in a lighter version, Benjamin Moore's Jamaican Aqua, then reappears in the master bedroom accent wall (featured in the last post), and again in a light version in the master bath.  This color fits perfectly with the current trend toward clear (as opposed to muted or shaded) colors, but it's a classic in traditional design, so even when it's not trendy, it will still look just right with the mahogany dining room furniture.  Timeless.

Now, here are a couple of shots of the bathroom.  If you like, you can scroll down to the last post to see the master bedroom it coordinates with.

Master bath with 5-color Woolie blend, including beach glass shades of blue and green.  Imagine it a few shades softer, please.

From "his" mirror, you get a view of the master bedroom accent wall, featured in the last post.  I think I'm better with the paint brush than the camera.  The bathroom is actually a soft aqua and periwinkle blend, with lots of fresh white, but the camera only sees bright turquoise, and I'm no expert at tweaking it back on the computer.  Still, you get an idea of the pattern, and how it all relates to the bedroom.

The chickadees have appeared in a few other murals, which can be seen on my website, theartofthehome.com, along with the information on how to hire me to liven up the rooms in your home.

Questions or comments are always welcome!  Leave them below, or email me at Dawnmariedelara@gmail.com.