“You want to see my what?” I ask the artist, not sure I’d heard right.
“Your closet.”
“What does my closet have to do with my dining room?”
“It tells me what colors you’re comfortable in.”
Jade Wieland, decorative artist and owner of The Stencil & Faux Shoppe in Denver, has come by to talk about jazzing up my dining-room walls.
As we head upstairs, all I can think is: What will Dan, my husband, say when he hears about this? He’s never let me forget about the dog psychologist I hired years ago, or the crystal I hung in the kitchen to attract more chi. Now I have a wall artist in my closet.
“Just what I expected,” Wieland says, spinning around my walk-in.
“How so?” I feel insulted. I like to think I have some mystery.
“Look here,” she grabs a handful of sleeves. “Every color you wear is in your home: khaki, brown, black, cream and punches of warm red.”
OK, so that’s eerie. After 10 minutes, she pegs me: “Your taste is classic. You like pattern, but not too much. I see no Eastern influence, no fad following, and no contemporary anything. Your look is French country traditional, without variation. You’re easy.”
I beg your pardon.
Actually, I trusted her. Wieland had won me over two days before when I visited her studio. There I stood surrounded by sample boards of wall treatments she’d invented. On some, raised plaster created three-dimensional relief. On others, matte and sheen painted patterns alternated to create a tone-on-tone wallpaper effect. Some samples had the pattern recessed into Venetian plaster, like embossing. My prior notions of faux finishing suddenly seemed like finger painting compared to the Sistine Chapel.
She told me about a powder room she’d just finished, designed to look like an outhouse. She had lined the walls with canvas painted to look like weathered wood panels, covered the ceiling with corrugated tin, and painted a knothole with an eyeball peeking through.
She pointed out a fleur-de-lis wall stencil. “Here we just let the background color show through three layers of top coat.”
Just! In home design and life, I’m suspicious of any sentence with the word “just.” Like in yoga class: Now, just lift your ankle over your head and rest it gently on the back of your neck.
“Do you realize,” I say, “how hard this is for the rest of us? Picking a background color alone can take three weeks. Then you have to pick a pattern, decide how big you want it, and where. You have to pick two or three top-coat colors. Talk about glazed over.”
“It’s fun,” she says.
Fun, like a traffic ticket. Fortunately, decorative wall artists like Wieland are at home among decisions that would pull the rest of us under like a riptide.
We leave my closet and head downstairs to the dining room. Dan is on the landing looking puzzled. “I thought you were working on the dining room?”
“We are,” I say. His forehead still has wrinkles, so I fess up, “but she wanted to see my closet, to see the colors I’m at home in.”
“Naturally,” he says. But somehow, I sense I haven’t heard the last of this.
Coming up
Syndicated columnist Marni Jameson is the author of “The House Always Wins” (Da Capo). You may contact her through .
Going faux with a pro
Picking a decorative wall treatment is paralyzing for several reasons: First, faux finishing can look awful when it’s done wrong — way worse than plain paint. (Those cheesy sponge jobs!) Second, picking several colors and a pattern at once is downright daunting. Finally, hiring a faux finisher is expensive. But with the right guidance, the results can be fabulous. Here, says Jade Wieland, are some ways to take the fear out of faux:
Know where to apply it. Decorative techniques such as stenciling, faux, relief and plaster adornments can enliven walls, ceilings and floors, and add artistic value. Most people embellish dining rooms and powder rooms first. Other popular areas include over doorways or arches, around ceiling edges where crown molding would go, around light fixtures and above chair rails.
Consider all the elements. Pattern and color are the obvious tools in the art box, but don’t forget texture and sheen. Using the same overall color but varying the sheen (matte with shiny) and texture (trowel techniques) can create some wonderfully sophisticated looks.
It’s not your grandmother’s stencils. When many people think of stenciling, they picture rows of ducks or vines of ivy. If you look beyond the local craft store, and seek professional artists or higher- end vendors, you will find upscale, unusual patterns. It’s worth looking, and it’s fun. Look for plaster reliefs too.
Pick the pattern first. When selecting a patterned wall design — whether raised, flat or recessed — pick pattern before color. Most people pick the color first, but that’s backward, says Wieland of The Stencil & Faux Shoppe. Can’t decide on a color? Look in your closet.
To find a decorative artist near you, contact the International Decorative Artisans League at . Go to the member gallery and search by state. Only members who have proper training in the field and who are in good standing can belong.
Check references. Before hiring an artist, see his or her work and talk to their clients. Look for great work and a great work ethic. Then expect the unexpected.
