WHILE I WAS AWAY FROM MY DESK....

Fabulous Media Room 

with Graphite-Rubbed Walls

Santa Fe, New Mexico

I've been away from my blog for many months now, so I'm going to attempt to get up to speed  by showcasing two of my favorite jobs from early last spring. This media room was a beautiful remodel to a 600 square foot room that used to be a photography studio.  The walls were a pleasant shade of celery green, but the new home owners wanted something more contemporary and masculine, and they wanted something much more interesting by way of finish and texture.  We started with a deep, charcoal gray painted base coat, and then I made a wash of liquid graphite and masonry sealer to apply over the paint.  I hand rubbed the wash over the painted walls using a soft brush and rags.  In the photo below, you can see the light from the new skylight reflecting in the nicho, which I laid with vintage silver leaf.  I hand-striped the border of the silver leaf, and now that nicho will have a perfect back-drop for any piece of art set in front of it!

 

An exciting project from last spring:

A Stark White House Turns 

Rich and Vibrant!

I used to feel that it was a crime to paint over plaster walls... you probably know the type:  Beautiful, hand-troweled, diamond-hard plaster, which used to be in earthy pink hues, and is now only available in cool white unless it has been custom tinted.  I appreciate a nice white plaster wall, but after a year of living with it, this home felt way too cold to it's owners.  Having let go of the notion that plaster must be left "as-is," I've experimented with great success in changing the color of plaster walls.  I've found that a low nap roller cover will produce a paint finish almost as smooth as the plaster underneath, so the feel of plaster isn't lost. With the addition of a subtle Okon-based glaze in similar tones, the depth and interest of plaster are also maintained.  For the main rooms of this home, we chose a warm palette of earthy sage putty, rich cocoa, and complex golds.  Because the rooms are open-concept and can all be seen from any vantage point, the colors needed to compliment each other.  Our creativity opened up when we let go of the "no painting over plaster walls" rule, and felt free to make these changes!

Above:  Living room wall in sage-putty

Above: Dining Room fireplace in rich cocoa

Below: Powder room wall in rich cocoa, 

and media room in gold.

COMING SOON... 

Photos of a recent fresco restoration 

on Delgado Street!

Beautiful Contemporary Home in the Hills

Santa Fe, New Mexico
PRIVATE RESIDENCE

When I first met the owners of this home, every square inch of wall and ceiling space was a pale, mint-green hard troweled plaster. It was a very high-quality plaster job, but the color was overwhelming. My clients' first idea was to minimize the green by choosing a few walls to paint and faux finish in a color which would coordinate with the existing walls. I came up with a pale shade of "taupey" gray, with hints of lavender, which has a value the same as the green plaster. Using a color the same value minimized the look of having a two-toned room, and kept it from looking too busy. The new shade picked up many elements in the wood and stone floors, and looked great with the green. However, after a year of living with this color scheme, I was called in again to finish the rest of the walls, because the green was really getting to them. I just finished these rooms yesterday, and I am amazed at how much better the whole house looks! It is a soft, unified color scheme that picks up tones in all of the other elements of the home, including the artwork. I chose to do a deeper accent wall, also with a faux plaster, as seen in the photo above.

View into dining room, with green blinds

Now, about those blinds...

Back when just a few of the green plaster walls were left, I never noticed the striking green hue of the blinds in the sliding glass doorways. Next to the plaster, they just looked off-white. After cleaning up and placing all the furniture where it belongs yesterday, the first thing I noticed was the green light coming through the windows! (See photo above, upper right corner). I sent these photos to my clients, who are out of town right now, but didn't mention the blinds. (I didn't want to have them feel as if they're living in a never-ending, de-greening spiral). Guess what! The first e mail I got from them said, "everything looks great, but the blinds are GREEN!" The colors don't clash, but I think we can all conjure up images of a less startling shade for the shades. I guess that will be the next thing on the list when they return to Santa Fe!

View of living room, with two-toned faux plaster walls

TIP:

Taking the color changes a few steps at a time has been a very low-impact way
to deal with not liking the original color of their new home.
Throughout the process, we were able to minimize impact
on my clients' daily lives by doing small bits of work
while they were out of town, take time to decide if more work was desired,
and stay within their budget.

TAMING OF THE WILD!

Santa Fe, New Mexico
PRIVATE RESIDENCE

This was a project of taming some very wild, structolite plaster walls. The plaster hue was too pink for my clients, and the texture too rough. Rather than paint over the plaster, I decided to wash over it with something resembling a traditional lime wash over adobe. Plaster has the feel of adobe... very earthy and solid, so a finish that looks like lime wash seemed a perfect solution. I custom-mixed a wash made of paint tinted to match the mid-tone of the plaster, diluting it with Okon, which is the typical sealer used on plaster walls. It was the semi-transparent and artistic application of this wash that allowed the beauty of the plaster to remain, while taming the wild pattern and color scheme.

RED WALLS! WHAT TO DO?

Aside from the rough plaster walls, my clients also disliked the previously deep red foyer walls and fireplace, which were done in Venetian Plaster. I chose an earthy taupe Venetian Plaster, (shown in the photos above and below), and covered the previous red hue. I enjoy applying Venetian Plaster, because the finish involves using a trowel! It's satisfying and rigorous upper-body exercise to knock down the plaster while applying the final coat. The finish of the plaster is burnished with a trowel, and then polished with very fine sand paper. As opposed to the old red finish, the new Venetian Plaster tones are soothing, and coordinate with the newly toned-down walls of the rest of the house.

TIP:

The artwork and furnishings of this home are striking enough on their own,
so rather than compete for attention, the new, muted color scheme creates a beautiful backdrop for the homeowners' treasured pieces.

Years of repairing flaws in plaster walls has given me various sets of skills that allow the beauty of the finish to remain while getting rid of any unwanted aspects such as cracks, chips, nail holes, water stains, and just plain old bad texture. This house-wide project had very gratifying results!

BISHOP EVERETT JONES RESIDENCE
Santa Fe, New Mexico
ARCHITECT - John Gaw Meem

I'm starting this blog with a post about one of the most stunning homes I've ever had the pleasure to help restore. In 1951 John Gaw Meem returned to his Spanish-Pueblo Revival idiom as the architect for the Episcopal Bishop Everett Jones residence. The picture windows overlook the Tesuque Valley, which is an incredible view. Work began on this house in late summer, and finished the following spring, so we got to see the valley in a full spectrum of greens, and in the winter, covered in snow.

My crew and I did some minor re-surfacing of the walls before painting to match the original color, and re-painted the faux Tierra Amarilla dado throughout the main parts of the house. A dado is a painted, decorative border at the floor level, and can be any height. Often, dados mimic the look of baseboards or wainscoting. I have always enjoyed the decorative uses people throughout the ages have given paint.

TIP: When there isn't money for lumber or tile, a contrasting color painted along floor lines or around windows adds warmth and interest.

In the case of the bishop Jones house, the color of the dado was chosen to match a traditional mud application of tierra amarilla, which literally translates as "yellow earth." Tierra Amarilla is an area in Northern New Mexico named for the color of it's clay, which is infused with tiny specs of mica. The process of washing walls with this clay involves breaking up the dry earth clods, sifting, and adding water to make a "slip." The slip is applied to the wall much the same way paint is applied. Sometimes I use a brush, but I also use my hands to avoid any brush marks in the finish. It's a very tactile and enjoyable process that leaves me feeling connected to the place. When the mud dries, and the little specs of mica show up, it has a beautiful effect.

I re-finished most of the woodwork in the home, using custom mixed colors in a Bioshield oil based clear stain medium. Modern pre-mixed stains do not always match older finishes, especially after years of patina have occurred. I use a combination of dried, earth toned pigments and liquid tints in the clear medium. Once I think I've got the color right, it needs to be tested to see if it matches when it dries. Each stain was painstakingly applied to match the multi-layered, original "brush-stroke" textures. It was a treat and an honor to bring back to life every detail and finish by one of my favorite architects. John Gaw Meem's legacy helped define the architecture and vernacular of the new Southwest.

I RECOMMEND...
Facing Southwest, The Life & Houses of John Gaw Meem

Chris Wilson, Photographs by Robert Beck. W.W. Norton & Company
www.wwnorton.com


Learn all about John Gaw Meem and his work, in this retrospective volume
which includes many fine examples of John Gaw Meem's legacy,
including Bishop Everett Jones' residence.