mural blog

An Enchanted Dining Room

One of the more interesting residential projects we've completed in the past few years was this dining room for a townhouse on the upper West side of Manhattan, just off the Hudson River.  The townhouse was being completely renovated by the owners, and they brought us on board to create a landscape mural for the dining room. 

Conceptually, the owner's idea for the space was to create a landscape mural in the room that would bring some of the magic and mystery of the forest into the experience of the room.  At night, lit by fireplace and candles, one might be able to imagine that one has set up dinner in the clearing of a verdant landscape.  During the day, the landscape would bring a sense of life and space and color to the room.

The architecture of the room was established when we started on the project.  The walls smoothly curved up into the ceiling with no break and there were some existing columns at the the doors to the adjacent parlor.  The dining room is on the third floor of the townhouse, and a curving staircase with a beautiful wrought iron railing transitions through the space on the east side of the room.

An early concept for the room was to base the landscape on the paintings of the Hudson River School, a style of painting notable for it's luminous light and drama.  The image above was an early sample, but it was fast apparent that the approach wasn't going to work for this room.  The images were often too dramatic, and when doing landscape murals in a residential setting like this, you want the mural to be a secondary character, not the focus of attention.  You want to enjoy the beauty the artwork brings to a room and have guests enjoy it, but the mural's role should be clearly subservient - it sets a tone of beauty and elegance and than fades to the background.  Given this, we knew we needed to try a new approach. (Click thumbnails for enlarged photos)

We did continue to use some Hudson River Valley scenes as a compositional foundation, but ultimately we went with a much lighter 'spring' look, and eliminated some of the more overly dramatic elements we had at first considered. The picture on the left showed an early sample of this new approach.  In addition to changing the palette significantly, we also used an 'alla prima' technique, where colors are applied directly to the substrate, skipping the traditional 'underpainting' technique we usually use to  get the drawing and structure of a mural into place.

The switch in palette and technique brought a great sense of lightness and space to the mural, but their was still something missing.

Studying some of Gustav Klimpt's landscapes, our lead artist was inspired to add some metallic pigment powders into the paints - golds, silvers, and coppers - and it was these subtle metallic effects that really brought the mural into the finished state. You don't notice the metallics in the room at a quick viewing of it, but when lit by the flickering flames of a candle, the metallics catch the light and make it sparkle in a very subtle way as you move around the room.

In addition to painting the mural on the walls, we also did a sky that also incorporated subtle warm golden glazes.

This project was a lot of work, and took a lot of time, but the end result was quite stunning - a project that both our clients and us are proud of!

Following are a few "before and after photos" so you can see more of the room as it was transformed by our enchanted forest scene.

 

Flocking? Yeah, we love to flock!

Some time back we created a custom flocked wallpaper as part of a special project that the Rockwell Group had designed.  The project was a fantasy library room for the actor Jeremy Irons, and was conceived as part of a benefit for the DIFFA organization.  The wallpaper, which can be seen in the background of the picture above was a flocked image of inverted trees on a gradated ground - an image you might see if you were to look at a reflection of trees in a still lake or body of water.

Flocked wallpaper, for those of you not familiar, is often thought of as the very embodiement of a certain kind of tacky or kitschy interior design - This is due to it's unfortunate resurgence as a design staple of the 1960's and 1970's, and perhaps a lingering association it still holds with 19th century bordello design.  But it actually has a long history, with the first flocked wallpapers  making their appearance in the late 17th century as Annabelle Magazine points out in brief history of wallpapers.

However, most of those who still hold such negative connotations of this fabulous product are either dead or dying, and it's time for the new generation of flockers and flock lovers to emerge!

The term "flocking" refers to the peach fuzz like texture on the wallpaper, as seen in the above detail of a flocked wallpaper we made, or the technique of applying the texture.  Jewelry boxes, or cases for musical instruments are often flocked to provide a layer of soft protection for fragile / easily damaged objects.

Of course, the American Flock Association can tell you a lot more than I ever could about all the history and contemporary applications of flocking.

As far as it's use in wallpapers, I can tell you that it's so rare today, that the famous British manufacturer of historical wallpapers, Cole & Son, claims on their web site that they are "the world's last remaining manufacturer of hand flocked wallpaper".

I guess they haven't heard of Silver Hill Atelier!

We created this flocked wallcovering for the Pentagram designed restaurant Sullivan's, which was located in The Ed Sullivan Theater where David Letterman broadcasts his show from.

This flocking was perhaps the most complicated we have done, with three different flocked colors, and a fourth base color underneath it all.

Completed, it was a stylish trompe l'oeil of curtains that was appropriate for the retro glamour and style of the restaurant.

The process of flocking, as we do it, involves multiple passes over custom sized sheets of wallpaper.  We create a design, typically one color, which is to be flocked over a single color background, as can be seen in this detail image to the right.

For a flocked wallcovering of two colors, like this one, we need to make three passes on the wallpaper - one for the base color, one for the glue that will hold the flocking powder, and a third and final pass which is the application of the flocking.

As each pass can ruin a sheet it is a fairly complex process. There is a typically an overage of as much as 20% of an order to obtain the enough sheets of suitable quality and coverage for final use and approval.   And I guess that's why we seem to be the only company in America still creating custom hand flocked wallpapers.

As it is unique, and entirely custom, it's not an inexpensive product.  We make it to order, and usually charge on a square foot basis, with a minimum of 500 square feet.  Depending on the design and quantities ordered, it can range from $15 - $20.00/square foot.

In additon to Sullivan's we've created flocked wallpaper for Django restaurant, seen on the left....

And for multiple locations of "Strip House Restaurant" as seen in the photo below.

So if it's flocking you want, it's flocking we got.

We love to flock, and we're pretty flocking good at it!