Happy Holidays!

Friendly Wishes for

a Warm and Wonderful

Holiday Season!

Susan and Tracey

Finished With Style, LLC.

Spoken for in Westport

Remember when we showed you the photo of the kitchen in the Westport rental...six months ago?!  To make a very long story short, we ended up refurbishing the entire house.  Yep!!  Overhauled  the entire house!!  Plaster repairs, paint, lighting fixtures, tiling, hardware, floors refinished, laundryroom moved, basement refinished. Of course, we had help from the 'trade': carpenter, electrician, plumber, to mention just a few.      

We could go on and on about the state of the house and the extent of work done, but basically this house was brought into the 21st century with repairs and cosmetic updates.  After many weeks of work, all was complete and the house rented after 2 showings.  We think the before and after photos speak volumes, so enough said!!

We have been very busy since the completion of Speechless in Westport...lots of work to show. Business/ blogging  resolution for 2011?  To blog on a weekly basis.

 

Susan and Tracey

FWS

A Jewel Box

Quite often, we are hired by clients who are afraid or unsure of putting color and finishes on their walls and ceilings. Recent clients, Rita & Dave were definitely in this category. After showing them our portfolio of sample boards, they decided to start small in their very grand home. They decided to have us finish a powder room. If they liked that, well, then we would go from there.

We were working with a 6' x 8' powder room, tiled floor, beautiful gilded mirror, sconces and chandelier, custom window treatment. Beige walls. White ceiling. The new color palette was inspired by the window treatment fabric. Finishes were chosen for the walls, ceiling and ceiling medallion to complement the accents in the space.

The walls and ceiling were basecoated, then burnished with tinted waxes, resulting in a high-polished finish, not unlike Venetian plaster. The medallion was basecoated in black, then drybrushed with gold metallic paint to mimic the gilded accessories. The new moulding was aged with a gold glaze, accentuating the carved details.

TaDa!! A beautiful jewel box.

And, now, over their fear of finishes, work has continued throughout their beautiful home.

Much more to follow!!

Susan & Tracey

FWS

Form Follows Function

This was a fun and functional project in Breda's kitchen.  Rather than cluttering up the fridge door with magnets and stuff, why not put a decorative magnetic board right onto the wall?   And why not make it a lovely restaurant-style menu board with gold leaf scrollwork?

That's exactly what we did for Breda.  We selected a 2' x 3' decorative frame stencil to fill her blank wall.  We masked off the area of the frame's scrollwork and painted it out with 3 coats of magnetic paint. 

 

 

The magnetic paint was then given a decorative coat of color with a textured bronze paint.  The stencil was installed on top of the magnetic area and given a basecoat of black paint.

Once the paint was dry, a coat of size was applied. The stencil was then removed, and a variegated gold-leaf was added.

 

And voila! A beautiful magnetic board/wall! Another great idea would be to install this stencil with chalkboard paint, rather than magnetic. Either way, the grocery list becomes a piece of artwork.

 

Susan and Tracey

FWS