Focus your decorating around something you love, such as a dramatic piece of fabric.
Redecorating this attic master bedroom (at right) and bath into a gracious retreat started with the homeowner's love of toile de Jouy fabric. Toile is a scenic patterned fabric which was first used in France in the 18th century.
To reinforce the fabric's blue-and-white palette, the walls and ceilings are decoratively striped and painted in paler blues and creamy whites. The headboard, also inspired by the toile, is hand-painted on the wall. For other quick updates, a textured all-white cotton freshens bedside chests, and a toile slipcover dresses up a thrift store chaise lounge. An old oval frame, touched up with paint, sets off a blue willow patterned plate. Scraps of toile fabric cover the shades of swing-arm reading lamps.
Toile is repeated in the bath to visually link the two adjoining spaces. The fabric covers a flea-market vanity and mirror frame, and puts a feminine twist on a director's chair, shower curtain, and window valance. A deep-blue semigloss paint finish adds high contrast to the wall.
Southwest Furniture-Finishing Techniques
Explore these furniture-finishing techniques that capture the unique look of the Southwest.
In keeping with an aesthetic that's of the Southwest as well as grounded in American furnituremaking traditions, Roy and Carol Nowacki, owners of The Bunk House, a furniture and antiques shop in Corrales, New Mexico, craft their furnishings from pine. Next, they distress each piece with a paddle pierced with screws (to give the appearance of wormholes), a crowbar (to make dents that'll take the stain differently and create dark streaks), wire brushes, or a brick.
Each piece is then finished with irregular levels of stains as well as layers of paint that are dry-brushed and sanded (see photo at right), then finally burnished with rich coats of pigmented beeswax.
Decorative handles or latches add the final touches to a piece.
"To avoid having the wood look flat you need to build up its surface, just as an artist would do a painting," advises Carol. "You do that with wax, pigments, and paints." And lots of elbow grease.
"Whenever I want to paint a piece I'll stain it first, then layer different colors atop the stain. After the paint is dried, I'll take a wire brush to it so that I can pull different layers of color out in unpredictable places -- and even go right down to the stain to pull out the wood's natural grain."
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