Ok, so I took a little hiatus..

Ok, ok....I took a long hiatus. But its better then the year long gap between the other posts! I guess my problem being a business owner, a mom, and a wife...is that there is always something else to do.  For instance, after finally getting our 1 year old baby in for a nap on saturday afternoon at 4 pm, an hour and a half past due.  I came downstairs and my husband is sitting on the couch playing on his phone. I looked around at our toy riddled living room and sighed. I said to him, "Must be nice to just sit and do nothing!!"  I said, "Now I have to scan a jersey in to the computer to make a logo, make a sample for another client, switch paint supplies for work....cook and this house looks like a tornado hit it!"  Don't get me wrong, he is a great help around the house and has crazy hours and is most of the time a walking zombie. He deserves to rest on the couch too.  Just wish I could!

I do this at least once a week, have a mini-adult tantrum. I think I am allowed.  There aren't enough hours in the day, to get all my housework done, and my business work done. Being my husband is NYPD officer, he doesn't have any work to do at home, except for all my little projects I give him.  He is great with tools, and can build me anything. We just need time and money.

Part of the reason I wanted to start to blog was to share pictures of our house projects. Since the summer, I did manage to paint one fabulous piece of furniture, which I will share later when I have a chance to get some good photos. We also just recently painted the kitchen.

Yikes, no photos of that either.  God, I am a bad blogger.

Ok so I will switch to a job I just completed in the beginning of September. This is a fabulous client who hired a designer to create a Country French apartment for her.  I got the call to do very rich old yellowed walls, woodgrain beams in the master bedroom and a faux brick powder room.  These jobs I completed in March.  I was lucky enough to go back in September to transfer the black hole in her living room, the fireplace.

The wooden mantle was not to be touched.  The inside stone mantle came with the apartment and had a lovely shade of pink, note sarcasm. So to change that we stippled a textured material to give the look of old limestone. We then over glazed it to change the coloring and antiqued the crevices.  

Bye bye black concrete!

Just one of the many layers of the stenciling process.

Done for the day. Stones tomorrow.

The black areas were primed and base coated with regular paint for a stenciled portugese tile.  The hearth of the mantle, the floor part was a marble that had seen better days. That also was primed, and stippled with a another coarse plaster to give texture. 

In this photo you can see the strange round stones on the bottom hearth. Here is where we miscommunicated with each other. Both the client and I looked at stone walls and agreed upon a random stacked stone in a horizontal pattern.  She did not like this and wanted more round stones, and much larger.  They were changed to this. But these were too clean, new and Disney"ish".  I then changed it to be heavily distressed and can hardly see any grout.  Unfortunatly I only have the finished view from far away. Oops. Next time I'm in NYC, I will grab a better shot.

You can see that the stone is almost disappeared on the hearth.

The finished room. Both her living room and library have turquoise, orange and brilliant yellow. I love her shutters on the window.