Are you looking to enhance a room? Consider a specialty finish on the ceiling!
When my client Sara was re-doing her dining room in Brookline, she was thrilled with the warmth of the red color she chose for the walls – at least until the ceiling was painting a cold, stark white. The coolness of the ceiling white was accentuated by the fact that the trim was a warm off-white. In the end, she felt that any warmth she had gained from the walls was taken away by the “chill” of that ceiling!
Sara and her family lived with the room for a while, as she considered her options for getting the room back to her original vision. After looking around, she decided to go with a gold called “Pale Luster Gold” which would bring in the warmth, but would not overwhelm the rest of the room due to the subtle, soft gold color. Adding to the interest, Sara chose to go with a “hammered metal” finish as opposed to just doing a flat metallic.
Painting metallic can be tricky, so Sara’s house painter chose to pass on the job – which is when she called me! I had done the hammered metal finish before, so I knew how to make the finish look right (hint – following the instructions doesn’t necessarily do it!)
An additional challenge we had were some sizable sagging cracks in the ceiling. These were the kind of cracks that couldn’t just be patched without replacing or re-plastering the ceiling, so Sara decided to leave it.
In the end, the color was perfect to achieve exactly what Sara was looking for! We also found that the slightly mottled look of the hammered metal finish actually looked better with the ceiling cracks than the white did – giving it almost a look of parchment.
It helped too that we got it done in time for Christmas!
Below are some before and after pictures of the project.
"Before" #1
"After" #1
"Before" #2
"After" #2
Enjoy!
Jason