The Trouble with Tape

We've all done it: stuck pictures our kids created or some other, "let's display this temporarily" thing up on the wall with masking, packaging, or Scotch tape (I wonder if Scotts invented that tape?).

Then we forget about it and it stays taped to the wall indefinitely.  Here's what happens.

It isn't pretty.  In some ways, it's worse than nail pops, holes, or anything else which can happen to  walls because some of these patches you see here are sticky and will repel paint that goes over it.  So, for a day and a half I scrubbed those sticky spots alternately with Goo Be Gone, paint de-glosser, and then acetone.   The first did very little; the 2nd worked better, but mostly started eating into the paint (not a problem, since I was going back over that, but...).  Acetone worked best, but since the tape residue had worked its way into the paint, it was hard going.  Further, wherever you see spots that have ripped off the paint and the surface of the underlying drywall, the tape's adhesives had leached through the paint and directly into the drywall.  All 4 walls were covered with this type of thing--the girls' projects having been displayed lovingly in the laundry room by the kitchen for a decade. After and along with removing stubborn old adhesives, I patched and sanded, 

spreading it on thick to help dry out what I couldn't remove.

Finally, I've primed the entire laundry room, ceiling down to the molding 

(which I'll prime too, at the end).

Now the room is finally ready to have something wonderful added!!  I'm going to complement the adjacent hallway theme, only with more color.  After doing faux finishes through out the rest of the first level, we went with something the movie "Three Men and a Baby" inspired.  Remember the caricature mural outside their apartment?  I painted all the molding black and the door panels, to create a cartoon feel, and then added family member caricatures in, and extending out of, rectangular boxes (including each of their cats--my client rescues them and we've added one every other year or so.  The portraits of the deceased cats remain with the family to cherish).

 Stay tuned for how the room develops, with a fun alternative to tape, for the next time something 

is worth putting up on the wall.  Also, the likeness of Lulu, the newest kitty, 

will go in the laundry room!

Love Letter Finishing Touches

Jean Marie Stangert Bovello is an exceptionally talented photographer and has filled her home with family photos, both current and from long ago.  Photos of other rooms we've designed together are already on my website, including her Tuscan kitchen with its pergola ceiling, and photo gallery family room, with faux finished pillars and textured walls.

Her vision for the master bedroom is the theme "Make Love Last," weaving together all her beloved family and romantic photos.  Here's what we came up with.

First, Jeannie created Italian love letters, using real names from her ancestry.  I burned the edges of a few, both for effect and imagining an angry lover's reaction to receiving such a letter, while still incensed with the sender.  Sometimes, I actually let them catch fire and then blew them out! 

 SO FUN!  I also tore some of them around the edges and even right through the letter...

or crumpled them up, as though they'd been thrown away in a fit of temper,

only to be rescued, reopened and smoothed out to be read over again and again.

The finish I chose to connect everything together was simply some mahogany water-based stain mixed with water and glaze to add a "smoked effect" to all the edges of the walls, doorways, windows, under shelves and around the letters after applying them to the walls.

Brushing on glaze, then smoothing the tracing paper letter on top of that, 

and pushing out air bubbles with a dry brush, and sponging off residual glaze.

The letters went on crinkled and irregular, the ink sometimes smudging, as with tears.

All of which endowed them with an aged, endearing and enduring look.

There were exchanges to and from 4 couples, so a total of 8 letters, and I placed them so the replies were in the same area, with Jeannie's grandmother and grandfather on either side of the bedposts.  Sometimes I was able to place the sender near their photo.

This is a cable from the bride-to-be to her husband-to-be, promising to follow 

him anywhere during World War II.  When fragments of the burnt letters broke off, 

and clung to the glaze, we were tickled, because it added a sense of 

the fragments of passing time and memories.

Whether love hurts 

or feels like a dance,

I think all of us, like my friend and client, want to Make Love Last.