More on Chinoiserie

Business has been great and so I have not had time to devote to this blog. Please forgive me for this omission.

Below is an umbrella which Linda Chase of Linda Chase Associates asked us to paint for her show room in Santa Barbara. Linda is a brilliant designer and co-author of several books including, "In The Romantic Style" & "The World of Biedermeier".





This powder room in Boston was part of a large commission by Lucie Beauchemin of Beauchemin Grassi Interiors. Lucie's stunning work in America, Europe and the Middle East has graced residential properties, yachts, helicopters & theaters.





Our mural was based on murals in the Chinese Pavilion of Drottningholm near Stockholm, Sweden.



This panel was created for Honey Collins of Honey Collins Interior Design for this years Wenham Museum's Designer Show House. We work often with Honey and she is a real pleasure to work with and a talented designer.


\






We had a large project in the California desert over the last winter, and we wrapped up the details this summer. The entry way to the master suite called for a mural to define the space. Lena, Brooke, & the designer, Andree Jessup of Jessup Design, decided on this Chinoiserie scene.



Brooke's mom wanted a mural with some "zing", in the powder room of her Rancho Santa Fe home. The background color added the intensity she was looking for.





















This foyer in Manchester, MA, called for a lighter touch.







Back to southern California where the sandy tones seem more appropriate.















Another powder room in Cambridge, MA, for designer Julie Alvarez de Toledo. Julie is located in Orvieto, Italy. She is now much sought after in Europe and USA.





And yet another powder room commissioned by Scott Clements of SR Clements Design, for a house in Manchester, MA, overlooking Singing Beach.













This Manchester, MA, home required a way to beautify the hidden doors between the butlers kitchen and the dining room. Lena and the home owner came up with this solution.













We are so pleased with the mural below, created for Honey Collins, that we published it on our most recent promotional mailer. It was featured in the July/August 2010 issue of Design New England, "Northern Belle" about Honey and her work. Honey wanted this mural to look and feel like an 18th century hand painted wallpaper. We achieved this with multiple layers of Rembrandt chalk and glaze and have dubbed it the "Rembrandt Finish".















Chinoiserie on panels is another common use.









This home in Boston was a commission for Julie Alvarez.

A GENTLE PLEA FOR CHAOS

Recently, we went to stay with Penny Bianchi, the marvelous designer and our great friend in Santa Barbara. She was the first person to hire us when we had just launched our business, 28 years ago. Penny wanted to know why we had only one photo on our web site of the work
we did in her powder room. We painted this mural in the Montecito home she built 10 years ago. This blog and the photos included herein are our feeble attempt to make up for that omission.



Penny's home is featured in the September issue of House Beautiful. The title of the article is "Patina".



It is a magical place that one might suddenly come upon in the Italian countryside.



Sequestered at the end of a small road where a hiking trail leads you by a butterfly preserve. A pea gravel pathway takes you along an alle of olive trees and into a different world.



It is here that Penny and Adam invite the birds of Santa Barbara to live with them amidst a wonderland of native plants and trees.



One might easily be deceived into thinking that nature herself had created this Eden – but it has evolved over ten years under the careful direction of Penny.

Both garden and house take you back to the fairy tales that comprised your childhood.

Each room, whether inside or out is full of potential discovery. Beautifully controlled chaos reigns, the spaces overflow with lovely things from different times and places.

The interior tumbles out onto porches and terraces and the garden grows in, up the walls and across the ceilings. There are no boundaries.

More Murals

We are currently wrapping up our most recent project in Boston. We have painted on Azek panels a bucolic landscape, which will go behind a frame on the roof deck against the brick wall of the building next door.

There is a sky on the ceiling in the family room.

One of the bedrooms will be very French.

The entry and dining room is in progress now.

And finally the media room is another example of using technology to every ones benefit. The designer, Lucie Beauchemin, came to us with a tear sheet from a magazine. The ceiling in this image is Moroccan but we couldn't make out what the pattern was.

I used it as reference to design a pattern and Lena painted a 35 inch "tile" in colors which work with the interior design of the room.

I will scan that "tile" and repeat the pattern with my computer and have it printed on 36" strips by White Light Digital. This paper is wet strength wallpaper, printed with archival inks tested to be stable for 200 years. If a panel is damaged years from now it can be replaced from our digital files.

Finally, the wallpaper will be hung by Greg Kahler of PHD, who, hung a 20 foot mural on canvas for us in Latitude 43 Restaurant & Bar in Gloucester, MA. The whole process will be the subject of a special on New England Dream House. More to come when all is finished.