Grey and White Winter Style

With Christmas 2015 in the books, so went all the decorations.

Our decor went from full on "Christmas Holiday" to "Winter Style". 

At first, I thought I would live with the tree for a bit longer, as in a winter forest tree...

just white lights and no ornaments, but it still felt too Christmassy. So down it came,

the last of our holiday decor to get packed away.

Less feels more right about now.  My desire to pare down and de-clutter is 

pretty strong. My "Winter Style" is all about less stuff and

built around a grey and white color palette with a sprinkle of metallics.    

 Right before the holidays I got these grey and white linen panels from Ballard Designs.

They warmed up the room and since I have always been a fan of Buffalo Check pattern

I knew I would love the grey and white panels.  I bought them for the dining room, but ended

up loving them in the living room instead.  Having the white slipcovered sofa makes it

easy to switch out pillows, and so two jumbo grey linen pillows found their way into the mix.

 Using less accessories also meant using less pillows, 

so I added this simple beaded snowflake pillow.

Faux or real sheepskin fur throws add a magical wintery feeling of Dr. Shivago style.

Our normal stacks of books and candles were taken off of the coffee table trunk, 

where only the vintage silver tray remained to hold my current reading

 supply of decor magazines and a few votives for evening atmosphere.

 As you may know, our family loves dogs. A collection of vintage dogs

 that was in an upstairs room would be just the right accessory for our Winter look, 

with grey and white and metallic.  Moving things around is the perfect way

to shop your house for accessories when changing up the look of a room.

 Vintage silver mixes it up with the gold touches in the room. Our candlestick lamps

 are vintage brass, and don't have that shiny look anymore, which is really nice. 

 Its a soft dull gold that looks warm and pretty. I decorate with lots of vintage, as it gives

a room lots of personality.  No more rules about not mixing silver or gold either.

Another beaded pillow with silver and gold beads,

 sits on the velvet tufted chair next to our piano.

A mix of grey and white with just a handful of metallic accents is

what my Winter Style is all about.  When spring finally arrives

I will be ready for more color and accessories, but for now this feels just right.

Shop your own home and pull together bits from other rooms to give

your space a fresh look for the winter.  Check out how my design blogger

friends have transitioned from their holiday decor to the Winter season.

So many great ideas and there is no one way to do it~after all,

personal style should be just that. 

Shabbyfufu

French Country Cottage

 Maison Decor

 Savvy Southern Style

Stone Gable

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Back to work~gilding and glazing light fixtures!

My little pink swing sitting in the snow~

Well the blizzard of 2013 is officially over, yet the roads remain a mess making it hard to get anywhere.

The city of Boston still has yet to open the schools and life is not as easy as it was just a week ago.

But Maison Decor is back in business~we lost Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  However 

I am happy to report we are back here at work, and it feels great!

Since Justin was staying at our house due to the blizzard we managed to get in 

a day of work yesterday, Monday,  which is a day we are closed.  I had some

custom paint jobs on light fixtures so we decided to tackle the huge brass chandy together.

Justin and I worked together painting all the details of this chandelier as it dangled at

a nice height from a ceiling hook.  This is the best way to paint a chandy. You can rotate

it and get under it and we used a ladder to get up to the higher parts.  There were so many

details that needed to be covered and we used different size brushes to get at them.

Finally we had finished the first coat of French Linen Chalk Paint®.

It would get another coat too~

Then our magic metallic glaze in German Silver was applied.

This is one of the techniques you can learn in our Advanced Workshop.

I have decided to teach this class every other month.

Whenever anyone sees this they love it and want to know how to 

create it!! Even other "professionals" ask me how to get this effect.

Are you interested in learning how?

My first class for glazes and washes is this Sunday  with 3 spots open.

The other light fixture I worked on was this~

You can see the bright brass finish on the left, and the new finish on the right.

This technique is done in the same manner with Chalk Paint and Glazing.

Change out the brass look in a flash!

On my way to work this morning I couldn't resist buying some flowers to 

create a bouquet to counteract the winter dreariness.

Of course I had to buy a few separate stems to create what I wanted,

as I am in love with Hydrangeas and Roses in pink 

(there are roses on the other side)

Pretty isn't it?

  I love a simple bouquet~and need to treat myself more often~!

Hope you are good to yourself this Valentines day and make sure

you tell the ones you love how you feel about them.

I'll be teaching the Advanced Workshop on Glazes and Washes

this Sunday~sign up here.

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This and that and Advanced Workshop schedule

 Our Boston store has a new display in the window.  Justin channeled a bit of Ralph Lauren for this one...while I was in the auction house he texted me his idea and so I shopped for a few items to add to his display.  All of these items are for sale of course.  I love coming into the Boston shop to see what's new as I rarely get to spend any time in here.  Last Saturday when the Malden shop closed, Colin and I took a ride into Boston with a few new items to add to Justin's inventory.  I couldn't resist snapping a few pics to share them with you.

 Gothic gilded mirror leaning against a great painted dresser with fab knobs.

                           A low chest perfect for a flat screen console~

 Some hand painted mugs~

Justin makes the coolest little signs and 

he displays them in white piglets.  Love his hand lettered font.

 While I am just snapping away Colin sat with Sylvia, Justin's schnoodle. She is our Boston mascot and is just a little puppy with a darling disposition.  Justin was at the gym next door working out after hours when Colin and I popped into the store late Saturday afternoon.  Little Syl was just sitting on her tiny dog bed and was so sweet! Colin scooped her up while I ran around the store grabbing a few photos.

 

Colin and Sylvia

 When we got back home Colin showered and got ready to go out with his friends~I had never seen his shirt before...it had the breast cancer pink ribbon thing on the button placket. I asked him where he got it~he told me he ordered it from a fancy shirt company and said that 20% went to breast cancer research. His friends thought it was pretty cool and they got the black polo shirts too.  The girls they meet at the nightclubs think its pretty sensitive of a guy to care about breast cancer.  Colin is just a handsome young man who actually does think about such things. I don't know how we got so lucky with him! He is a pleasure~ok, enough bragging on him...

 I finally got the Maison Decor Advance Workshop schedule started and I have decided to do it in a monthly series. One special workshop per month will be offered.  I added a Glazes and Washes class for February 17 and an Artisan Technique class for March 24 which will be all about the Pearl Plaster and other products.  At the end of this month I am headed to Colorado to spend  5 days with one of the creators of the product and I will get some one on one training time from the master of these wonderful and exciting products!  Of course I will still have my Annie Sloan Introductory workshops, two times every month. March 10 has SOLD OUT and March 17 has only 5 spots left.  Please sign up if you are considering it, as they will be gone probably by the end of the week.

 This table leg bears a smokey wash and a gilded wash...

And last but not least~

Thats my mom on the right in 1969.  She looks pretty chic in her tight bob and cats eye glasses and empire waisted shift!  She is standing next to my Nana, and then next to Nana is my aunt Cynthia, my mom's youngest sister and my Uncle Arthur. They have 2 boys and 2 girls.  Very sadly Aunt Cynthia died of melanoma when she was only 49 years of age. We miss her.  I think everybody agreed she was the prettiest out of the 5 daughters and had a matching personality to boot!  Uncle Arthur is one of my favorite uncles~he is that dashing kind of guy, tall and handsome and got charisma in spades.  When he walked in a room, he just lit it up!  Now he is plagued with an undiagnosed condition and the doctors are busy trying to figure it all out and find out how to treat him.  So if you are inclined, please add him to your prayer list. 

Hang in there Uncle Art! We love you and are pulling for you.

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Turquoise and Gold Inspiration!

With the start of the New Year I was looking for a little

inspiration for my shop and I came across this page in 

Selina Lake's Romantic Style book, one of my favorites.

I keep some decorating books around the shop for people to flip

through for inspiration and I often look through them myself.

So I left the book open to this page, but not before I called Colin

over to show him this room and mention that I loved the look

and style of this room~that I wished our shop had a bit more of this 

feeling to it.....he agreed with me, as he is an affable sort!

I had a meeting with my picker, Rebecca, scheduled for later in the day.

In the meantime Colin and I wanted to move things around 

and get the shop layout to function better for our

workshops as well as to make an effort to spruce things up

a bit after the hubbub that the year end activity had left the shop

in a bit of disarray.  Lots of clocks were painted and shipped out,

as well as books and gifts and furniture pieces being made over~

all in all the store had lost a bit of its mojo.

So this photo gave me a clear head and some direction.

 Rebecca came by and had a bunch of pretty things that I bought for the shop~
to include more mirrors and this pair of candelabras~she said they came out of a Catholic church and were from the Victorian era. They were enormous at 30" tall, and once the tapers are added they will be three feet tall at least! I had to have them~so decorative featuring wheat shafts, grapes and grapevine leaves, and lilies entwine the 5 candle holders.  Colin was busy stringing some bistro lights across the shop as Justin had done in Boston (below) with great results.

While Colin strung lights, I got busy mixing up a turquoise paint color out of Chalk Paint by mixing Florence, Provence and Pure White for a stunning blue. Our long french dining table sits in the middle of the room and when not used for workshops we cover it and use it for the painting projects like mora clocks and the mirror you can see below.  We planned to move the monster armoire to the end of the shop as it makes passage around the workshop table difficult during workshops.  I wanted to place it at the very back end of the shop behind my desk.  Problem was it weighed eight thousand pounds, and Mr. Maison Decor has had a sore back, so it was left to Colin and me to figure it out.

We would have to figure it out~but in the meantime I had that 

inspirational photo in my head and I just had to create!! 

 I have written more than once on my affection for the French gilding wax
that I sell....I just cannot tell you how important it is in many of my projects,
taking the nice enough finished result to a higher level!  I just touch a finger tip into the pot and then spread it on the surface I wish to gild. Its simple and fast with amazing results.

This is the custom turquoise blue I mixed up for the mirror.

I painted the entire thing with this blue. Then I added a watery layer of Versailles over the blue, except in the paneled area of the Trumeau.

After that, I applied clear and dark to the entire mirror frame.

Now it was time to bring it to life.

Pot of Gold!!

 Here is a rough pic of the mirror all finished~I will be adding mirror hardware to the back of it and hanging it today and will update the blog with a beauty shot as this photo doesn't do it justice. Its four feet long and huge.

 Below is a pic of the before sent to me by Rebecca.

The Trumeau mirror has a worn out wood frame with a bit of water damage and crackling, and the center piece has gold paint on it...less than stellar. I knew there were a few ways I could have taken this mirror~like a beautiful French Linen and gilding wax...but I wanted to go for that rich turquoise and gold look.

 I worked the same routine on another 4 foot wide sofa mirror she brought me which had also seen better days~its got an enchanting Bohemian quality now.

The gilding wax just picks up the high points of carved decoration and it is incredibly easy to get a masterful result just with a finger tip application.
After the mirrors were finished I went back to look at the inspiration photo~
and much to my surprise I saw something unexpected in the photo.

Ahhh, I love this turqouise and gold...but look!
There on the mantle!!

 A candlestick practically identical to the ones I just bought from Rebecca!

 Mine had the same three elements of wheat, grapes, and lilies! They also held five candles! Woah! It was like the law of attraction from the Universe had come into play at Maison Decor! At least that is what I believe.

 This was a mind blower~I had never ever seen candlesticks like this....and two hours after saying I wanted the shop to look like the image in the book, this very accessory walked through the front door. Amazing.
Does this kind of thing ever happen to you? Have you experience the law of attraction?  I'll say its not the first time this has happened to me, but each time it continues to amaze me.

Yesterday we had the most productive day! We painted and strung lights, and even got all the furniture moved around in the shop!! I will be sharing the entire thing with beauty shots tomorrow~the workshops are coming and I can't wait! I'll be teaching ten ladies on Sunday and then ten more two weeks later! If you wonder what you can expect in a Introductory Workshop I am planning a blog post that goes through it with a bit more detail.  Its four hours of action packed learning and tips and insider info that will put you in the Chalk Paint driver seat.

For more information on the Gilding wax, click here.

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February Classes and a Silvery Grey Sideboard

 The latest painted piece in the shop is this Silvery Grey Sideboard. 

Its quite large and has great lines and storage.

 I found it at auction and this is how it came into the shop~

all two tone brown with scratches and scuffs but in solid overall condition. 

 I was going to go for a Gustavian look with this piece.

 This time I planned to use quite a few things like Chalk Paint

in addition to a couple of other things like the Artisan Enhancements 

Pearl Plaster and French silver gilding wax.

The piece got a coat of Zinsser clear  shellac after it showed me 

it was a bleeder...that meant I could see staining coming through the first areas

 I painted. After the shellac dried, I coated the piece in 

Annie Sloan French Linen for my base coat. 

 Then I mixed up a batch of Ironstone MMS milk paint 

and started applying that in a random and layered way.  

I followed that up with some Old White Chalk Paint

until I got the look I was going for~

It was looking soft and weathered and silvery grey....

You can see how the white would stick in the crannies of the piece...

After it was all dried I added Pearl Plaster to the Ogee edges and the fluted ends.

After the Pearl Plaster I waxed, then highlighted with Silver Gilding Wax.

You can see the understated sparkle~

It really looks lovely~!

If you want to get more comfortable with painting furniture using 

Chalk Paint by Annie Sloan consider taking one of my 

Introductory Workshops.  I refer to is as my "everything" class

because you will learn how to use the paint and the clear and the dark

waxes, when to do what and when NOT to do this and that...you will use the

French Gilding Wax and create take home samples to inspire!

My January classes are sold out, but not February.

 My February classes will be on Sunday Feb 3 and Sunday Feb 24. 

The 3rd has 4 slots left and the 23rd has 6 slots open...

so sign up early if you want to be included by going to my online shop.

www.shopmaisondecor.com

You can see most of the furniture we have for sale and other goodies too,

 like our complete line of Chalk Paint books, brushes and fabrics, 

Pearl Plaster, Gilding wax, gift certificates and home decorative items.

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