before and after

I just got a couple of before pics from a little paint job i did many months ago. New house with lots of white walls . A few suggestions to add a some accent colors to give a bit more dimension to the dining room and the living room fireplace. These contemporary fireplaces can look ever so boring if kept the same as the walls. I chose the colors for the dining and painted the border on in lieu of putting up a permanent chair rail. The top trim on the fireplace is finished with a metallic bronze and gold paint.

one mirror gone and another one finished

The large green mirror has been shipped out and I just put this one out in the gallery. Beautiful wood with a few flaws, a small chip in the veneer and it had 1/2 in. holes on the sides where it had been mounted to a dresser as a vanity mirror. I patched the holes, limited the decorative painting to the sides which also camouflaged the holes and then I polyurethaned it with satin finish oil based poly to bring out the rich wood grain. So.... no dresser and it happens to be a beautiful old beveled mirror. Perfect to incorporate a little design and give it a new and different life 32 X 20 inch

revamped floor cloth

I did this floor cloth for a local business called JD Clothing Company a couple of yrs ago. Recently she closed to move to Hawaii and start a clothing business in Kona. She loved the floor cloth in her entrance but the style was so different from what she will be doing in Hawaii . So I am re- doing the logo and design. This is the start of the process . More to come to brighten the red with some begonia and I'll be adding in some yellow also. The original rug was placed on a low pile rug ( which is not recommended ) and hence it curled on one corner .... so to remedy that, I am creating a dog eared corner. More pics in following weeks before I ship it off to Hawaii. PS : the red in the second pic is actually the same as the first. I haven't changed that deep red yet.

vote for the armory

I'm asking anyone who cares about cool buildings or art deco to vote for our Cottage Grove Armory building. It is in a contest to win 25,000.00 that will be granted to the site with the most votes. It is truly an amazing building built in the early 1900's . You can see pics and read about it . Please go to < cottagegrove.org> and find out how to vote. We are going up on the polls and need to get to the top . This is a national contest.This building was bought by the city at a very low price with , I believe a no interest loan with payments to start in 2 yrs. Nice deal and it is an ideal , awesome building for the community once it gets renovated. I've taken a tour of it and from a painters view...... no water damage, no mold or dry rot......LOTS of natural light and huge windows, Maple floors. Beautiful ! Not to mention what the outside can look like when all the art deco features are highlighted once again as I'm sure they were in the 20's .

Before and after

Shoestrings, the local shoe store had their grand re-opening last night featuring a new line of women's clothing and accessories along with the shoes. My work was in helping with the color choices to give the look they were looking for . I did the phrase lettering on the walls throughout and stained the columns a medium walnut to compliment the old style historic look of the building. Painted the beige wall a rich red and used a neutral sage green on the entrance walls surrounding the new, dark wood double doors . More will be coming in the way of transforming their look . One step at a time so we can work around business.

Tile project

Did a little more tile on our tiny hall bathroom. One tip I learned long ago from reading instructions! ( good idea ) was to start one tile up from bottom by mounting a furring strip to wall making sure it is level and going up from there. Finish the bottom last. Also .... do not grout the corners . Instead use a tile caulk . You can get it in the same shade as your colored grout. Get one of those tile books they sell at the hardware stores.

house painting

So, back to coaching on painting the outside of your house. Save yourself some big bucks and learn a few things about your dwelling. My oldest daughter who lives far away from me is still working on hers in her spare time but she is learning lots about the care of her first home and the paint job is lookin' great!! Since I'm not there it has been an eye opener to see the results of my instructions and what others  actually hear . I overestimated her dedication in scraping and prepping . I kind of thought she would do over- kill rather than being timid in that area. Wrong ..... so what happened was that after priming and then doing a little painting, air pockets developed where the crappy old paint hadn't been scraped off. Not all paint needs scraping but when the first paint job was bad or they used cheap paint ..... or it wasn't primed properly ( which , I'm sure was the case here ) the paint never did adhere very well to begin with. Therefore more paint over it is a losing proposition. It must be scraped and primed ( raw wood needs an oil based primer ) before starting the paint job.

So , she had to go back and scrape again but now it is lookin' good. The painting is the easiest part. I told her in the beginning " prep is just plain ugly!! and it keeps getting uglier till you get to the painting part " This is where you find out what your made of .... do you persevere ? Are you a patient person? Determined? I say , get after it and love it when your done!!

bright spot

Got the sealer on this seatless chair . I think it's perfect for the garden . I also have potted flowering plants from Flowerista - Andrea Mull, Lots more inside to decorate your front porch and the chair is for sale too.... 95.00