Decorating With Class

Victorian Ceilings are a breeze

My first day back to work after our trip to our home in Idaho makes me anxious to go back over for Christmas to complete my projects.

While there over Thanksgiving, I created a sky mural on the master bedroom ceiling that I will now frame with cast plaster ornaments. I want the ceiling to take on the flavor of a Victorian ceiling one would find in a historical Victorian home. 

I also faux finished the four cast plaster columns I had installed on a previous trip, to a lovely soft brown marble. See step by step instructions!

Marbling the columns and adding a raised plaster stencil design gave the columns rich detail and was very easy to do.

These columns add not only architectural interest to a room that was once just plain, uninteresting walls, but they also brought add elegance to the room.

Nothing screams class and elegance more than a chandelier. Lighting is very important in the final design of your room decoration and chandeliers are a very beautiful way to address that decor need.

They can range from simplistic to highly ornate and no longer have to cost a fortune! (Yet always look like they did).

I found a fabulous website that sells beautiful chandeliers starting at just $99.00! They are GreatChandeliers.com  Their selection includes grand styles fit for a mansion to more subtle designs suitable for contemporary decor. French Country enthusiasts will find a delightful array of wrought iron designs that would fit perfectly in your decorating scheme.

They also feature "trims" for your chandelier which gave me the idea that you could add these single  crystal pieces to an existing lighting fixture to dress it up for a fraction of the cost of a new chandelier. These are actual crystals that start at just 40 cents each. In the foyer of our Everett house, we have a standard ceiling light that has glass pieces hanging from hooks. These glass panels could easily be replaced with strands of crystal beads and teardrop crystals, turning it in to a crystal chandelier in just a few moments!

Marbled Columns

As the last Thanksgiving guests left just yesterday, I spied the cast plaster columns I created in the master bedroom last year, and decided they needed a marble finish before I leave tomorrow to head back to Seattle.

Drawing from the main colors from the "willow tree" in the mural between the columns, I sponged and blended random background then added thin, "squiggled" lines with a fan brush, blending them to a softer line with a sea sponge.

I scrubbed the same background color over the column tops, wiping away the paint from the ornate design with a dry towel so that it brought out the detail with rich color in only the recesses.

Two coats of Minwax Polyeurethane later in high gloss and the columns look as through they are real marble! They also help to break up the long wall more efficiently and their architectural detail is now noticable from clear across the room.

Photos will be on my website at VictoriaLarsen.com next week, so do stop by to take a peek!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

How to paint a sky mural

As you saw in my last post, I painted a 15 foot by 8 foot sky mural on the master bedroom ceiling of our home in Idaho. I will again post the detailed instructions along with photos on my website at http://www.victorialarsen.com when I get back to Seattle after Thanksgiving.

Today I finished the mural by applying a coat of "Wipe on Poly" by Minwax. The colors and depth of the mural seems to come alive! Now it's ready and waiting for the cast plaster pieces I will surround it with during my next trip over here.

Having waited too long to do our grocery shopping for Thanksgiving dinner (which we are hosting for my husband's entire family), we found they are all out of TURKEYS! So we are headed to the closest large town tonight to try and find a bird. Too funny, I've never been "Turkey hunting" before. This may prove interesting!

Decorating with Class-The Sky Mural

Still at our home in Idaho, and as the rain poured for the past two days (soaking the forest which I love!), I have spent my time almost entirely, doing a 15 foot x 8 foot sky mural on the ceiling in the master bedroom.

I've done many, many murals in my day, but one thing I haven't done is a sky mural on a ceiling.

The first thing I did was to tape off the area of the ceiling that I wanted my mural to be. Boy, measuring out such a large space all by myself was a real trick! (Friend husband was busy installing a mable fireplace). Just try holding a tape measure against the wall, and trying to place a mark 4 feet in while you stand on a ladder! Flat impossible! The tape measure bends and falls and frustration is about all that results. Using a thin pole was no better since it was impossible to always be completely straight.

So, since my Mother raised a "find a way" sort of girl, I got a wide, flat board from the basement, placed a mark at 4 feet, held it against the wall and the ceiling (much easier than trying to get a skinny yard stick or tape measure to stay straight!) and began marking the ceilng.

The board, (being 10" wide) made it super easy since once pressed against the wall, it didn't tilt in either direction but stayed perfectly straight. I was able to mark out a perfectly even rectangle.

After taping the area off with blue painters tape, I then painted the entire inside of the rectangle a pale blue.

I've painted lots of clouds in my life, but doing it from a perspective of being on the ground was a new one for me. So, as I always recommend when you are trying something new, do a sample board! I practiced my cloud formations until I got exactly what I wanted. It took me three tries before they looked right so never feel bad if it takes you awhile to get a technique down. None of us know it all and practice is the only way to learn.

With most murals, one "builds" the scene from back to front. Doing a series of clouds is no different. So do clouds in the background then do your foreground clouds for realism.

When doing clouds, no matter what perspective, an easy method is to begin with a pale gray paint and with a sea-sponge, blot what would be the "under side" of your clouds. Blend just enough to where the obvious "blotches" are gone. EAch of my clouds is in the neighborhood of 10" across and 5 inches or more deep. So when blotting the gray, I did it in about a 3" deep streak that was about 10" wide.

Now, with a very light cream (I don't really like pure white for clouds but you can use it if you choose), I blotted the top part of my clouds with a wide paint brush, turning my brush each time I pounced it until I got the "cloud" I was looking for. Turning the brush helps to prevent you from creating the same exact effect over and over.

Remeber that clouds are a "puff", not a line in most cases so you aren't looking for anything "straight" here. You also want each cloud to look different from the next. Keep in mind that clouds don't have "points" (maybe a freakish one now and then but personally, I don't want any in my mural) and clouds don't have sharp edges so keep it "bumpy" and simple.

Look at clouds on a sunny day and what you will see are lots of "angles". If you need help visualizing, grab a magazine and I'll bet you money, in an ad or photo somewhere, there will be a photo that includes clouds. Study them and you will see what I mean. Heck, you can even copy them if you choose!

As you begin blotting the top of the clouds, be certain to blend outwardly in to the sky and down in to the gray portion of the clouds. You don't want obvious "lines". I begin at the outer edge of my mural (those would be the clouds that would be the farthest away to the eye). After I finished the first cloud, I moved back toward the taped edge to do the next one.

With each cloud you do, you want to cover part of the cloud you did previously, leaving bits of blue sky showing through here and there. As you do this, you will see that the top of your next cloud covers some of the gray of the outer cloud. This helps to develop depth and your eye begins to see that fact almost imediately. It's rather COOL!

Clouds form "clumps" in the sky in most cases. It's not so common to see a single cloud floating by, as it is to see groups of them together (I guess it must be the same reasoning why people tend to "bunch up" on the freeway). Spread out for crying out loud!

I did a series of clouds in each corner, taking the formations from about 2 1/2 feet out in to the sky and all the way back to the edge of the tape, again (important) leaving a bit of the underlying "blue paint" show through, and then groupings at the center of each long side of the mural.

How I would LOVE to give you some photos here but I'm on my laptop and no cable for the camera! But I'll be certain to put them on my website at VictoraLarsen.com as soon as I get back to Seattle.

Once the clouds were pretty much done, I mixed the tiniest bit of red paint with my remaining light gray paint and went back with a dry paint brush and on the "under" side of only some of the clouds (don't do all of them or it won't look right), I dotted and blended bits of gray/pink, ofcourse blending as I went. Blending is VERY important in creating clouds just as it is in doing sponge painting on the walls. Wow! They came out gorgeous and the addition of the gray/pink gave the mural even more depth and realism.

Lastly, I added streaks of cream (no gray) to the center of the sky, just here, beginning with the point of my brush then twisting and turning my brush as I made the streak. This gave the streak separation and natural looking waves. I then blended them with my sea sponge. They appear to be very far off clouds just streaking the sky with a hint of light. It looks very natural.

Tomorrow I will protect it (so I can wash the ceiling if I want to and eventually I will have to since I'm a major CANDLE FREAK!) with a coat of clear, satin "Wipe on Poly" by Minwax. This is great stuff! Get it at all paint outlets including Walmart (where I got mine tonight in the paint section). It's a "wipe on" clear coat that comes in gloss or satin, never bubbles, always looks fabulous and protects like varnish but super duper easy to apply and dries quickly. My Mom turned me on to that one and now I use it for just about everything!

The final step in this mural is to eventually add a cast plaster ornamental surround with a combination of some of our beautiful molds off my website. I've always loved the look of ornamental plaster in fine homes, so developing my line of molds allows me to create that for myself for pennies. If you haven't tried it yet, visit our "How to cast plaster from a mold" to see how easy it is. If you can pour cake batter and wait for 45 minutes you can do it!

Once I'm back in Seattle, I'll begin casting the pieces I will need for the ornamental frame for the mural and will bring them back over during our Christmas trip here and apply them. For now, the painters tape stays in place and the project will remain on hold until then.

Since I've worked since the day I got here, I'm going to spend Wednesday baking and making the house smell wonderful. There's nothing more relaxing to me, than to spend a leisure day in the kitchen just cooking. I love to cook and have developed some wonderful recipes I may one day share on my website.

Our neighbor Bill has a large blueberry farm (I can barely see it down in the valley), and he gave me a huge bag of fabulous, fat, juicy blueberries so I am baking muffins for the breakfasts after Thanksgiving (Yes, 8 people are really spending the whole weekend!) and trying my hand at a fresh blueberry pie! I found what looks like a nice recipe in Better Homes and Garden Magazine.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving everyone! We each have so much to be thankful for.

Decorating with Class-Wall Murals

It's great being here at our Idaho home. There is no traffic (exept the sound of a rare distant car on the gravel road miles away), there is no noise from neighbors or passers by (because they are so far away that it takes the wind blowing in just the right direction to hear them), there is only peace and the forest. I love it.

Despite the fact that we got in at 2 am, I was up and ready to start work on the house by 7. Two cups of coffee later, I was rearing to go and get something done.

During my last trip, I ripped the old carpet off the staircase and found they had painted the stairs blue and purple! Good grief!!!! . So I had primed and painted them a soft pumpkin, then streaked them with a fawn colored brown to mimic the background of real wood. They stayed that way until this morning when the first job I tackled was to do the wood graining in them to make them look like oak and applied the first coat of varnish. The second coat will come tonight with the hopes that is all dry and ready for foot traffic on Thanksgiving day when the entire family arrives. Won't they be surprised to see oak stairs instead of that nasty gray carpet runner that used to be there!

I then muted the mural I had done in the master bedroom last year.

What do I mean by muting a mural? That is the technique of making the colors of the mural more subdued with the application of glaze mixed with paint.

I loved the mural, I just wanted it "softer". So I mixed 1/10th cream wall paint (the same color as my walls) with 10 drops of chocolate brown acrylic paint (to give it more of an aged look) and dry brushed the entire mural.

Dry brushing is simply that: taking a large, natural bristled "dry" brush, dipping just the tips of the bristles in to the paint, wiping off the excess and then brushing over the top of the mural. The glaze makes the wall paint nearly translucent as it tones down colors and lines.

I was finished within about 30 minutes and now the mural is just right. Softer, more soothing and more of what I had in mind.

During one of my earlier trips, I had created 4 lifesized plaster and wood columns (using our column top mold and a simple 1x6x8 foot board) in the room to add architectural interest (see my earlier post). Tonight I will be adding a raised plaster design just under the column top. Tomorrow will be the day I faux finish the columns and bring out the detail in the column tops with a wash of brown paint mixed with glaze. This will not only make them more visible, but will add more "structure" to the wall. See how I did the columns on my site at VictoriaLarsen.com

I always have so much I want to get done each time I'm over here from Seattle and there is never enough time. But I do love thinking about it, planning for it and accomplishing as much as I can.

Featured website for the day:

This website features "Peel and Stick" crown molding! Wow! Now how easy can that be!!!! $69.99 buys you enough molding to do a 16x16 foot room. They also have organizational items such as the new vertical shelf dividers that I own many of and am completely addicted to along with many other very useful items for your home. Check them out at: www.ImprovementsCatalog.com

Decorating with Class; Our Idaho Mountain Home

As I close my business for the Thanksgiving hoiday week and leave today to drive from Seattle to our home in the mountains near Sandpoint, Idaho, I look forward to the 5 days prior to Thanksgiving day and all of the family arriving for dinner to work on the master bedroom at that house.

Two years ago, we purchased this home to be the home we retire to in 2009. Nestled in the deep forest of Northern Idaho near the resort town of Sandpoint, we found this lovely 4000 sq. foot home on 20 acres of forest.    This is where my Stencil and Mold business wil reside along with my husband's professional music recording studio "Ring Creek Records".

For the next two years we will be remodeling and decorating the house to suit our tastes. There's a lot to be done; new carpet, finishing what will be the music studio, granite counter tops in the kitchen and lots of detail work in plaster!

Stay tuned as the project progresses.

Husband Dana just finished the new CD project for "Monday Loss", a unique and totally fun band who is looking forward to the release of their first CD before Christmas. Rock for "adults" is what I call their music as it is romantic rock that I have become addicted to! I will be featuring their CD on my website along with single song downloads after the first of the year.

In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Decorating with Thrift Store Finds

Finding really great, quality items at thrift or consignment stores, yard sales or swap meets takes time. But it’s well worth the foot work you will do to score great items that would cost you a fortune otherwise and can make your home beyond the "basics", turning it in to something really fabulous! The trick to great finds is to go often. Frequent your favorites at least every two weeks (giving them time to get more merchandise in stock). The early bird really does catch the worm in this case because unique or quality items are snatched up quickly. When I am in search of a particular item, I tend to go every week on Mondays. This is typically the day when new merchandise is set out after the weekend rush.

As I mentioned in my previous post, what you are looking for are items in your decorating style that have quality construction (even if you need to turn a screw, replace a hinge or do a bit of paint or repair). Decide what your room needs, make a list that you keep with you when perusing these wonderful treasure shops to keep you from purchasing things you really don’t need.

Fully examine the item then ask yourself what you will have to do to get it in shape. Recover it? Paint it? Fix it? And are you willing to do it.

Remember that these types of outlets are fabulous for finding accessories as well!

Here are some of the items I’ve picked up that help to complete my decorating:

I used to see beautiful chaise lounge chairs in romantic old movies and found them to be so sophisticated and classy. But check out the prices of a new one! Ones similar to this retail at over $700.00 I paid just $35.00 for mine at the Swap Meet. Knowing I could re-cover it, I hauled it home with great pride!

Chaise Before            

Chaise After I recovered it

Check out diy.com for step by step instruction on how to recover furniture.

My $20.00 Occassional table. Plans for it include a black gloss finish and gold stenciled detail on the top. Find the stencils on our website at VictoriaLarsen. com

 This black marble based lamp was a real steal! Perfectly "Tradional" in styling, in great shape and all I had to do was to redo the gold finish on the metal with a antiqueing kit from the paint store. $10.00 is all I paid for it. Replacement shade was $12.99 at Lowe's    

I nearly threw myself through the windsheild when I slammed on the brakes in front of a yard sale that featured this exquisite, hand carved occassional chair. $40.00 later (they wanted much more!), I was laying it gently in the back seat and screaming home to place it in my living room. I've since found the perfect material in which to create a padded seat on it. This chair looks so expensive that visitors to my home comment about what a fortune I must have paid for it.

By now you are beginning to see that thrift store and yard sale finds don't have to mean that you are decorating your home with "junk". If you make good choices, use a bit of common sense and hone your "fix it" skills, you can have a very classy home on a dime.

For many wood items such as chairs and tables, a simple coat of paint, an antique finish and a stencil can create an elegant, one of a kind peice for your home.

This is a coffee table I found at a thrift store. It is made of very heavy wood (took everything I had just to get it in the truck all by myself!). But I couldn't resist it's oval top and super quality, let alone the shocking price tag of just $5.00. Why was it $5.00? Because it had the most ugly, bright blue paint on it! A can of orange gel paint stripper later, the application of one of the designs from my
Raised Plaster Small Designs 2 stencil done with gold acrylic paint instead of plaster and a very simple hand painted vine made it fabulous!

Table close

Now the beauty of the wood shows through and is our coffee table in our "soon to retire to" home in Idaho.

I have many more super finds to show you and much more to tell you about so do stay tuned!

Enjoy your searches....turn them in to a fun treasure hunt, go often, be wise in your choices and you too can have beautiful furnishings on a budget. When you want some really great decorating ideas with stencils for paint and raised plaster or you have been dying to create an ornate plaster ceiling or wall design with inexpensive yet gorgeous molds, visit my website at Victorialarsen.com

FEATURED WEBSITE OF THE DAY:

 

http://www.paintideas.com

This website is filled with product information for special circumstances (like painting a metal door) and great ideas! Be sure to click on the idea gallery. One of my favorite projects is the “Antique Table” design with paint: http://www.paintideas.com/category.asp?catcod=livingroom&nddm=1&ndds=1&projid=215

The gold accents page: http://www.paintideas.com/category.asp?catcod=livingroom&nddm=1&ndds=1&projid=154

Princess chair: http://www.paintideas.com/category.asp?catcod=livingroom&nddm=1&ndds=1&projid=120

And the Black and Gold End Table: http://www.paintideas.com/category.asp?catcod=livingroom&nddm=1&ndds=1&projid=13

 

These are all examples of great ways to re-finish thrift store or yard sale furniture finds. American Tradition paint brand is a trusted brand that I use with great regularity and is available at your local “Lowe’s” Home Stores nation wide.

Decorating with Class on a Budget

Decorating With Class-The Everett House, Decorating Lesson #1

After we moved in to our “jewel in disguise” home in Everett, Washington, Dana and I hung over the rail of the dilapidated deck one bitterly cold afternoon and peered down to the fish ponds on the neighbor’s property below. I mentioned to him how I’d have this house in shape and decorated within the year. He laughed at me and said: “Try 5 years from now”. I scowled at him thinking to myself: “My new husband just doesn’t know me well enough yet”.

But it was Dana who was right. Little did I realize that just the task of ripping down all of the disgusting wallpaper, having the carpets replaced, painting each of the 17 rooms was going to take me well over that year timeline I had given myself. 

Each day I labored over this house. Each day you would find me with either a paint brush, hammer or scraper in hand, toiling away over some project. Decorating during the “fix it” process was the last thing on my mind. (OK, I lied….I thought of it constantly and dreamed of how this house would look once I could get started).

My first order of business was to fill this house with furniture! Coming from an 1100 sq. foot house to a 3100 sq. foot house meant I had a lot of empty space. Being on a budget was a challenge but one I was determined to overcome.

Lesson #1: I learned long ago that the value of an item isn’t in its cost, but in its quality and timeless style. This is a lesson for you to learn as well. If you purchase something only because of it’s price and the fact that you need it (a coffee table for instance), you will quickly want to replace it because it will either fall apart due to lack of quality, or you will yearn for one in the style you are decorating in. Hence, wasting your money on something that didn’t work.

If you are on a budget, look for quality construction materials and a style that is timeless. What is timeless? Something that is always in style. Many furniture designs never change. They’ve been around for years on end and don’t follow “fads”.

So you found such a piece. Forget about the fact that the material is bright red with purple flowers on it since Surefit.net makes some really fabulous, well fitting slip covers if you don’t want to try re-covering it yourself Though re-covering furniture is just a breeze!. I've personally recovered 6 very large furniture pieces and typically within 1 day.

When you find something you really like, forget about the fact that the leg is a bit wobbly or the arm is falling off. As long as the wood is not cracked or rotted, these issues can usually be solved with a few turns of a screw or a replaced nail and a bit of wood glue.

Being a thrift store and yard sale shopper all of my life, those were the most natural places for me to turn to find what I was looking for. Bargains are endless if you go often, with a firm idea of exactly what you need. 

Keeping “Traditional” furnishing styles in mind as I scouted (since I had discovered that was my style preference), I refused to settle for anything that was not my style or of good quality, even if I had to re-finish or re-cover it.

I jumped for joy when a “wing” chair with Queen Anne legs caught my eye in an out of the way thrift store. The fact that it was covered in deep orange crushed velvet didn’t matter. The fact that two of the legs were loose didn’t matter. I’m a girl who knows where the screwdriver is! I loaded it in the car for just $5.00 and giggled all the way home.

The very next day, I dashed to the fabric store, picked up 2 ½ yards of good, sturdy upholstery fabric, some braided trim (the total bill came to $26.00) and re-covered it with my trusty staple gun and a bottle of good old “Alene’s” Glue (available nation-wide at your local craft store). Now there’s some stuff that will glue nice and tight!

Here’s a photo of it 6 years later and it’s still the most comfy seat in the house. Talk about a nice piece of furniture on a budget!

 

Don’t get discouraged if you don’t find just the right pieces right away. Take your time and remember that it will be these pieces that you will have years and years from now. They will be pieces that will outlive many re-coverings, they will withstand all the changes you make to your room as you add to and take away from your ultimate decorating dream, and their timeless style will prevail over all the fads that come and go.

Some items, (a good, quality sofa for instance), might be something you want to purchase new. Again, purchase for quality construction and style. And if you can’t afford it today, try doing this: Pick out the piece you wish to purchase. Rather than to put it on your credit card and add to it’s cost with the interest charges, take it’s purchase price (including tax and delivery) divided by the amount you can afford to put toward it each month and begin saving that amount. Just yank it right out of your paycheck the moment you deposit in to the bank. If you want that lush sofa badly enough, you may want to temporarily cut back on the HBO channel, go back to dial up for your internet service or while or instead of buying those extras at the grocery store, put that money toward that dream sofa. These are just temporary cut backs that will be well worth the sacrifice to have something you will enjoy for years to come.

With my next installment, you will get a glimpse of other very classy, high quality items I've scored  from bargain shopping and views of our Everett, Washington home.

Decorating with Class, The Everett House

When my husband Dana and I went searching for our first home together (and the first home I would own that I would actually live in), we scoured the Real Estate ads for days on end in search of just the right house.

On one particular Saturday, we were slated to venture out and view all of the homes I had so carefully cut out of the ads and pasted on to blank paper. But Dana's comment was that he had seen a house listed on the Internet that was "just too good to be true". A 5 bedroom, 3100 square foot English Tudor home in Everett, WA for a mere $249.000.00 (which had been reduced from $279.000.00).

"Something is wrong", he said, as we drove through the flower laden park on the way to this incredible find. "Why would such a large home be so cheap? I guess we will see".

As we drove up in front of the house, we saw why; the shake roof was literally falling in to the yard, it was unkempt, and needed paint. Certainly not the prettiest house we had ever seen.

We hadn't contacted the agent and Dana was about to drive away when I said: "I'm not afraid to go to the door and ask if we can see it, so let me out". With that, he put on the brake and I jumped from the car.

I knocked endlessly on the door (knowing someone was home because I could hear hammering inside). Finally, after what seemed like forever, a man in a wheelchair, a white cast on his leg, answered the door. I apologized for having disturbed him, then felt like a total heel when he said "I was upstairs and couldn't make it down quickly".

I felt so bad that I didn't ask to see the inside, but instead to take a look out back. He agreed and I motioned for Dana to join me as I scurried toward the side of the house that led to the rear of the home.

We crept through the gate and peered in to one of the 8 foot sliders on the deck. There, in a quaint family room, a massive stone fireplace peered back at us....we began to get excited. As we stood facing out toward the yard, our eyes dropped to the most magnificent, curved brick staircase leading to the lower yard. As we ascended it with careful steps, we were swept away  at the deep green, curved stone wall that it wound around. We were already in love, despite the the overgrowth of morning glory vines that covered every bush and the 30 foot vine that had grown clear up the first level, through the deck and trailed toward the door as if trying to get inside.

Two hours later, we stood waiting for the Real Estate Agent to let us in. However, there was a couple viewing the house at the moment and we only prayed they wouldn't purchase it.
We stood outside nervously waiting as the couple and their agent came out. The looks on their faces made our hearts sink. They were NOT impressed! I wondered then, what horrible mess would lay inside. Complete destruction? Rooms torn apart with only studs as walls? Hanging electrical wires and years of rubbish lying on the floors? I was nearly frightened to enter.

As we stepped inside, we stepped on to a beautiful flagstone entry floor. In the living room was a breathtaking stone and marble fireplace. New kitchen cabinets had been installed and warm hardwoods lie beneath our feet.

We quietly walked through the entire house. Room after room (17 all together) of yes, frightening decorating, horse wallpaper, brilliant colors badly sponged on to walls with jungle monkey wallpaper borders, bright orange carpet on the stairs and sagging gold carpet upstairs. But we could see through all of that. We were no strangers to fixing, decorating, refinishing and renovating.

The house had been on the market for over a year. We made an offer on the spot and they accepted it! We knew we had a jewel in disguise.

Stay tuned to find out more about this wonderful house, it's interesting history, and what we did to turn it in to the grand home it is today.

Visit my website at http://www.victorialarsen.com

Decorating with Class

When I was 8, I watched my Mother exit her bedroom dressed in a beautiful white, sleeveless dress and stiletto high heels, her long black hair cascading gently over her shoulders, faint pink lipstick on her lips. She was a vision that impressed and molded me.

When she was busy with other things, I would sneak in to her closet and put on those white high heels. Trying to walk in them was ridiculously funny, but by the time I was 17, I had mastered "stiletto legs" and could run in them with great speed and agility.

My Mother is also a "do it yourself" kind of lady who I once helped flip her washing machine on it's top to replace a broken water pump, watched her recover furniture, build her own tables, paint everything in sight and paint life sized paintings of people in lounging positions with gentle smiles on their faces.

I grew up with her talents. I grew up with beauty and art all around me. I grew up with her encouragement, knowing I could be, have, accomplish anything I wanted in life.

On her bookshelves were worn, leather bound books of ancient architecture and art. I perused these books every chance I got, mesmerized by the beautiful walls with elaborate murals, ceilings of Victorian mansions covered in plaster art of the times,  paintings by Picasso, Monet, the chapel ceiling and drawings of Micheal Angelo.  I wanted to surround myself with that type of beauty. That type of elegance. I was captivated by it all.

I wanted to live wealthy without being wealthy. And I wanted to create that life on my own. With my own hands, my own talents, my own visions of beauty.

I began drawing when I was still tiny enough to fit under the kitchen table with it's long cloth hiding me from sight.  I drew on every piece of paper I could find and when I ran out, I tore the protective pages from the books she so loved because they were simply blank pieces of paper in which to create on. (And trust me, I got in to trouble more than once!).

In 1991, I turned my talents for drawing to wall art in the form of stencil designing. Within a year after my first sales meeting with a "Ben Franklin Crafts" store in Monroe, Washington, my products were sold in over 100 of their stores nationwide. Within two years they were sold in 7 countries.

But I was still missing something; I was helping others to add beauty to their homes through this simple art, yet my own home was lacking everything I loved. I hadn't put the time and effort in to making it my "showplace" as I had always believed I would. I set out to change that.

But what was my style? I really didn't know until I happened upon an issue of "Traditional Homes" magazine. I was glued to each page! Picture after picture of those beautiful rooms spoke to me in the deepest sense. This was it! THIS was ME!!! How could I have not known that "Traditional" decorating was what appealed to me most? Because I'd never been introduced to it before now. (Or so I thought).

Soft colors, timelessly styled furniture, draping fabric, elegant accessorizing. It screamed at me and I knew I could have nothing else in my home.

Suddenly, everything looked different to me. Even my wall stencil designs began to reflect this new love.  And then I realized that todays "Traditional" decorating is merely a simplified version of everything that appealed to me in those wonderful, leather bound books I used to sneak to study when I was little.

Stay posted to this blog to find out just how I have accomplished creating a very beautiful and elegant home on an extremely small budget and how I am now doing the same with our retirement home near Sandpoint, Idaho.

Visit my website at http://www.victorialarsen.com for unique stencil designs, a full line of Raised Plaster Stencils that give you raised designs on your walls with a simple bucket of joint compound and a plastic scraper, Ornate wall molds for creating your own plaster wall and ceiling designs for pennies and more decorating ideas than you can imagine from creative pros and beginners alike!