Always Looking Up - painted ceilings

March 20, 2014

I saw this image on Design Sponge this morning. It got me thinking...

I painted a lot of ceilings back in my decorative painting days.

It's so much work...

But the results are so worth it! Adding design elements to the ceiling...

can give a room a sense of spaciousness and importance, like this passage way between the entrance and living area of a home...

or this alcove in a master bath.

One of my specialties, back in the day, was ceiling medallions (this was painted, I think, around 2003?)

I designed and hand-painted custom medallions to draw attention to unique light fixtures. (this shot, above, is of my design before I added metallic bronze paint to the shield int he center.)

Some medallions were more like extensions of the light fixture design...

And some gave diminutive chandeliers a sense of space where they might otherwise get lost.

Of course, sometimes it takes a village to get the job done.

I hired this team of artists, Tricia George, Sierra Helvey, and Mina Reimer for finishes in this entire house including the 90 foot long, 14 foot tall barrel ceiling...

yep, we did all of that with glazes, distressing, lime washes...

Thanks to Tricia, the designer got her flourishes. And thanks to me, we figured out how to create vertical, yes vertical, stripes on the 14" crown lining the hallway. I didn't agree the color and design choices that the Interior Designer on this project suggested, but I did like the challenge.

Overcoming design challenges is part of the fun as a decorative artist. I didn't care for the light fixture the interior designer chose for this vestibule, but adding classical elements to the groin ceiling kept the overall European feel of the home in tact.

But back to ceilings...

I like to create concise repetitive patterns like this allover stencil I modified and painted on the ceiling. Yep, that's paint.

(Notice, the stenciled walls? That's a piece I designed for this room and just re-used in a recent painting, Glory.)

My own bedroom ceiling was featured in Apartment Therapy a couple of Summers ago. Some comments from the blog say 'there's too much going on this room"