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Press Room: Article 1 |
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| Publication: |
Orlando Sentinel |
| Article: |
Artists' sleight of hand sets scene in each room |
| Date: |
Orlando, Fl. — 5/8/05. pg. J.1 |
| Author: |
Sherry Boas |
| Photos: |
Dennis Wall, Orlando Sentinel |
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PHOTO: Regina Garay's crew used a multimetallic glaze and stenciling to turn a plain dome light in the hallway into a simple but striking work of art.
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The boldly painted sitting room has hand-embossed cream-and- terra-cotta walls with an aged stencil border. The bedroom walls are done in softer tones overglazed in burnt sienna/brown-tinted cream, also with a stenciled border. The bathroom columns are stone embossed with walnut-wax accents. Similar treatments appear on the bathroom walls and ceiling. The closets are painted to match the mahogany wood of the built-in units.
As you enter Palazzo Vecchio through the hand-carved double doors, expect the unexpected. We'll walk you through the highlights.
THE PUB
The first room you'll see on the right is a surprise.
"The idea was to create the look and feeling of an authentic English pub," says faux artist Teri Siewert. If the walls and ceiling look like dark leather and you're sure the ceiling beams are real wood, Siewert, whose two-person crew is English, was successful in fooling the eye. What you're seeing is Sheetrock painted with wood graining to mimic wood. The walls are painted yellow, then finished with embossed leather plaster. The ceiling has a metallic-gold undercoat completed with crackle leather inserts around the wood-grained beams.
"My crew took special pride in re-creating a place in which to have a pint. From the faux walnut beams to the tobacco-stained walls, you really do feel you're in another country," Siewert says.
THE OFFICE
The next room on the right is the office done by Mary Childs of Focal Points Inc. Childs describes her work: "The original concept for this room was based around a very large Italian Carrera marble fireplace. Since the majority of the house uses warm tones such as ocher, terra cotta, rust, and tan, I had to find a way to heat up this very cool- toned fireplace." Wanting the room to have the look of stone, Childs' team applied two layers of a product called RsStone to the entire room. The walls then were glazed with burnt umber, and another layer of RsPlaster tinted moss green was skip-troweled over the walls. Finally, the walls were troweled with two colors of glaze.
"The walls now had a color tone that was perfect for the house, not too cold, not too warm. But the room was still lacking something," Childs says.
After agonizing over what was missing, Childs hit on the solution -- she calls it the "wow factor." She decided to apply embossed wallpaper below the chair rail and paint the paper with reactive metallic paints that oxidize and age the surface, making it look like it had been there for centuries. The final step was to coordinate the ceiling, which she did by painting it a tarnished brass and glazing it with stain. The project was complete, wow factor and all. "For me this project reflects the best of what faux can offer," Childs says. "It combined experience, creativity, color theory and problem solving. Superior faux finishing will make the most of the least and the best better."
A SMALL CEILING DOME
As you leave the office, look up at a small dome directly above a circular mosaic tile design on the floor. The mosaic tiles are real, but Regina Garay's team created the pattern on the lighted dome. This technique starts with a multimetallic glaze that has a stenciled design over it. It is simple, yet striking.
THE DOWNSTAIRS POWDER ROOM
In Palazzo Vecchio, every bathroom is a work of art beginning with the downstairs half-bath -- a must-see room.
Faux artist Garay applied a technique called Venetian crackle, which uses Venetian plaster as the crackling product. The crackle then is overglazed with powder pigments and finished off with wax for durability. The ceiling is glazed in colors that complement the parchment finish. "I like this look a lot because it turns everyone's heads on what crackle can be," Garay says. "Most people think of crackle as a furniture finish or strictly for country and/or distressed decors, but it can be an elegant and striking look for walls when done in the right way."
THE READING ROOM
For a moment, cross the foyer to the first room on the left. This is the reading room/library, faux-finished by Siewert.
"My personal favorite is the reading room," Siewert says. "I love the dark mahogany faux wood contrasted against the lighter stone texture. I could stay there for hours in my little cocoon. "There is a well-disguised storage closet in this room. Can you find it?
THE DINING ROOM
A magnificent mosaic "rug" covers the dining-room floor. It's made out of 200,000 authentic marble tiles, so it doesn't exactly qualify as faux finishing. Or does it? In "Florida's first-ever Faux Showcase House," the line between what's real and what's not is difficult to define. "In this room, the colors are strong, and the ceiling, low," says Childs. "So it was my task to complete the mood for the room by painting the ceiling. I chose to lift the ceiling by painting a sepia-toned Old World sky." Childs layered base glazes of amber and earth brown and softened them with a terry towel. She then swirled in patches of off-white, being sure to leave some of the base color showing through, and she softened the white with a badger brush and highlighted the edges of the clouds with titanium white. After the sky was complete, she painted an architectural border around the room and light fixture.
"I created this frame design using the shape of the pool frame and elements of the light fixture," says Childs, referring to the lakeside swimming pool viewed from the dining-room windows.
THE MASTER SUITE
Saving the best for last, you can linger in the upstairs master suite, which has three rooms -- five if you count the two oversized walk-in closets. The rooms are filled with artistic renderings. Siewert's team applied a wide variety of textures, colors, decorative finishes and applications. The boldly painted sitting room has hand-embossed cream-and- terra-cotta walls with an aged stencil border. The bedroom walls are done in softer tones overglazed in burnt sienna/brown-tinted cream, also with a stenciled border. The bathroom columns are stone embossed with walnut-wax accents. Similar treatments appear on the bathroom walls and ceiling. The closets are painted to match the mahogany wood of the built-in units.
REAL OR FAKE?
After viewing the 21 rooms, step outside into the pool area. Are the columns truly stone or a grand imitation? And how about the doors on the four-car garage? Are they made out of wood or is this another illusion?
At "Florida's first-ever Faux Showcase House," not being sure is a sure sign that the faux finishers did a "real" good job. |
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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
©Copyright 2005 by The Orlando Sentinel) |
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