My Past Life

A few years ago when my boys were younger and we weren't home schooling, I had a "word-of-mouth" small decorative painting business. One employee, (me) and occasionally I would hire a partner for a really large mural or faux job. My husband was easily train-able :), because he has an artistic eye, so he was usually my hired extra-hand. Here are a few photos, and no, they aren't very "Early American" or very "prim"! And, now that I look at them, I realize I was more interested in the artistic process, rather the artistic preservation....I took terrible photos!

The first photo of the rooster is the entry door to a little country decor and furniture store.


The two photos of the blue door are the back and front of a flat door, the only "real" thing on the door is the handle....the rest is painted to look as if light is coming through a six-paned window with "lace curtains" and cross boards are
painted on the lower half of the door. This was a laundry room and I painted the cement floor with "stones".


In the photo of the potted bromeliad, my husband cut out the arch in MDF board, and then I painted the rest....this way it wasn't painted on the wall and the home owner could take it with them if they moved.



For the fireplace in this client's home, I painted the "tiled" arch and fauxed the granite surround and columns.

She also had me use the same tile/ granite technique for the message center in their home.

This was one half of a very large room with arches over huge wood columns. This room took awhile! Parts of the ceiling height were over 12 ft high and it had a living room, dining room hallway and foyer. She wanted a "rich tuscany" look.

Someone asked if this is what I do in my own home. Well, when I was painting in other people's homes, I practiced on my walls at home. My husband used to tease that I was reducing the square footage of our home because the I would repaint the walls a lot and with every wall treatment the room became smaller! :) ...or so he teased.

In our home now, I prefer a solid warm color on the walls, and I'm saving the square footage of our home this way too!

Suzanne~Pear Tree Primitives