Creating a New "OLD" Kitchen - Part 3A - a New Sink & Backsplash

We had been looking at various old sink options for a few years, but my husband found this one completely by accident, when he was out driving one day. It's an old soapstone sink, in nearly perfect condition except for a piece missing along the top left side. The sink is exactly like the one my family had in our laundry room in Minneapolis, where I grew up, although that was a triple bay and this is a double bay - much more practical for us.

The sink was sitting outside an old barn about two miles from our house, so Jack pulled into the driveway and left a note for the homeowner, asking if the sink was for sale. After quite a bit of negotiation with the husband, the wife finally said that if we paid her and got it out of her yard within a couple of days, we could have it at a great price. She was tired of looking at it!

Jack went over to pick up the sink two days later, with the help of my brother, Dick, and our friend, David. NO LUCK! The sink was ridiculously heavy and they couldn't even get it into Dick's truck. It apparently weighed about 450 lbs.

Luckily, Plan "B" did work. The following weekend, Dick borrowed a hydraulic lift hand truck from a buddy of his and the guys got the sink to our house (without rupturing any discs, I might add!) The thing was so heavy they had to place big pieces of plywood on the ground to prevent the sink from literally sinking into the ground, or cracking all the Italian tiles we have leading to the front door. My "big" contribution was that I ran along and grabbed pieces of plywood that had been crossed, placing them in the front of the line, as the guys slowly moved the sink forward.

 Dick, Jack & David, after finally manoeuvering the sink into our kitchen.

Once we had the sink in the kitchen, it was time to figure out what kind of tiles we wanted to put behind and around it. All the tiles we liked best were either unavailable antiques or astronomically priced new ones which would take months to get from Europe. The solution just popped into my head that I could paint trompe l'oeil tiles and have the perfect backsplash for just the cost of plywood and paint.

So, while Jack set about demolishing the old sink and cabinetry, I began researching exactly which styles and colors of tiles we wanted. We ended up with a combination of Portuguese style border tiles (similar to the ones we had dragged home from Portugal on our honeymoon, years before) and Italian style tiles - both modern and antique designs. I took borders from some tiles and combined them with center patterns from other tiles. Some designs I completely made up, but most were doctored versions of tiles I found online.

 Jack cut top-quality, heavy plywood to the exact size for me, and after double priming both sides of the wood (to protect from water damage), I laid out my grid and started designing.

  My work area was in our living room, since the kitchen was a messy demolition site.

Some of the soup plates we bought years ago in San Gimignano, Italy.

I used colors from the various pieces of French, Italian and Portuguese dishes we own, plus put in some Latin words and phrases for fun. In one of the designs I made up, the sun has the word "LUX", meaning light. It's a word that very much describes the area around the Mediterranean where are hearts are generally playing hooky on vacation.

The right side, painted and ready to install.

While I was busy painting the backsplash, Jack removed the old sink as well as the cabinetry that had been below it. The new sink is much wider than the old one, plus it's deeper and way too heavy for ordinary kitchen cabinetry to support, so Jack built a new base out of 4 x 4's, dovetailed together for stability. We didn't have any tiles that matched the ones on the floor, so Jack found some very similar ones and cut them to the right size, to go under the sink, where the floor had been unfinished concrete.

In the meantime, our plumber had come over and converted the single faucet set-up to a double wall mount scheme to fit the holes in the new sink back.

After I triple coated the finished backsplash with top quality satin polyurethane, Jack and I fit it into place, adhering it to the wall with Liquid Nails and wallboard screws.

 Detail view of the edges. I painted them to look like real terra cotta tiles, and the edges have flat - not satin - polyurethane on them.

All of the faux grout is shaded with shadows where they would fall, based on the light streaming in through windows near the backsplash. I also painted in lots of little dings to the corners and edges of the faux tiles, to give them a realistic aged look. Where the glaze has been "damaged", terra cotta shows through to imitate real unglazed tile.

 I put in this Latin phrase, meaning "Love conquers all".

 One of my favorite tiles is this adaptation of an Italian tile I discovered online. I have always loved how Europeans have names for the different winds. I imagine that the "maestro" wind is the same as the provençal "mistral", which famously comes down from the arctic, crossing the Alps and bringing frigid air with it to the South of France.

Stay tuned for Part 3B - The Sink Installed!

Painting French Murals...a job that feels like a vacation! (Part 2)

Since my first post on this exciting project, I have had NO time to do anything but draw and paint my mural designs at PB Boulangerie Bistro. One month later, I am finally taking a day off and thought I'd give a quick update of the murals. They are almost completely finished...just a few more days of painting left, and then I'll share pictures along with the stories behind each one.

In my last post, I showed the little sketches I had done originally. My next step was to enlarge those to full size, which I did in my dining room.

 This is the drawing for the city of Lyon, with the Rhône river, the Hôtel Dieu, the basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, and a hot-air balloon, just for fun.

Starting to paint the first wall - the wine wall. 

I had brought my iPod with me for music, but it was much more fun to listen to the piped in French radio at the restaurant. If you like French songs (including classics as well as Top 40), click on Chante France, the music station from Paris, that I've been listening to this month. A number of the songs they've been playing are also on my iPod, so I knew them, but most are songs I didn't know, which made it really fun. That helped me get into the mood, as did all the French language flying around between the chef, his visiting family and his staff.

I transfered my drawings from paper onto the walls, and then began painting. Here is a taste of what's to come:

Painting French Murals...a job that feels like a vacation! (Part 1)

I recently began what is certainly my favorite mural job, ever: I am designing and painting scenes of traditional French life with a focus on food and wine, at our favorite local French restaurant. I had stopped doing murals, several years ago, in favor of spending time on my paintings for our gallery, as well as painting new needlepoint designs for my wholesale business KSH Needlepoint Collections. However, when our friend, Chef Philippe Rispoli, asked me about doing murals for his charming boulangerie and bistro, I simply could not resist.

I lucked out because Philippe started out as a huge fan of Jack's paintings. He currently owns two of them and is talking about having a show of Jack's works this summer, at the restaurant. He only found out later that I paint murals.

Chef Philippe Rispoli

Philippe's PB Boulangerie Bistro is located just 20 minutes from our house, in Wellfleet (well, 40 minutes in the summer, but so worth the drive). We originally met him, after we moved to Cape Cod, when friends told us we simply had to try the outstanding food the chef prepares there. The very first time we ate at PB, we went back into the open kitchen to congratulate the chef and have had a growing friendship, ever since.  I love this video interview with Chef Philippe:

Philippe grew up outside of Lyon, the gastronomic capitol of France, and cooked there for many years before moving to the United States. He has a stellar résumé, beginning at age 14, eventually cooking with the great Paul Bocuse in Lyon, and then with Daniel Boulud, in this country. Discussions with Philippe about Lyon and his favorite thoughts about that part of France, led to the various concepts for my murals. In addition, I have looked at lots of photos and books about the Lyon and Beaujolais regions of France. Probably most importantly, I am also relying on my own love affair with France and everything French.

I am having so much fun creating pictures of typical daily life in France, that I almost feel as if I am there on vacation. My soul is definitely on the other side of the Atlantic this week! While it's not as good as really being there, this job has been brightening my winter days on Cape Cod.

Basically, I am writing a story with pictures. While sketching out my concepts, I am making up people I would like to meet and buy food from at the local market - and I'm putting lots of my favorite foods into that market. I am watching a "guignol" puppet show with cute French kids, and admiring Philippe's French black cocker spaniel. In my imagination, I am looking at the rolling hills of beaujolais, covered everywhere with vineyards and dotted with charming little towns nestled in those hillsides. I am sipping wine at a sidewalk café. In short, I have been creating an imaginary French town where I would like to live, and putting in all my new friends and neighbors, from the town butcher to a chic young woman with an Hermès birkin bag.

For starters, here are what my original concepts looked like - done on tracing paper, so that I could see  graph paper through it. The graph grid has made it easier to transfer the small sketches to life-size drawings on heavy paper, which will be taken to the restaurant when I start to transfer the designs onto the walls. Painting will be the last (and longest) part of the process.

The wall devoted to wine - in barrels, wooden cases and bottles for tasting.

This walls depicts the cityscape of Lyon, which lies at the junction of the Rhône & Saône rivers. It includes a péniche - a river barge, typical of the city.

Vieux Lyon is the old part of the city. I have included a boulanger (baker) and a chef, as well as as an organ grinder.

A scene typical of the countryside surrounding Lyon, with a fois gras duck, pigs & the famous cows from Charolles, who produce divine beef for Paul Bocuse, and restaurants all over France. The Roman ruins and vineyards are also common sights.

The Place du Marché, with everyone from Philippe's mother, who in real life, makes homemade jams for the restaurant... to the fish seller offering American lobster (my nod to Cape Cod!)

I have been working on the full-scale drawings for a week now, and am almost finished with them. Then I literally have one month while the restaurant is closed, to paint everything in place. Wish me luck, and come along with me on my "journey"!

Faux Paint Your Walls To Look Like Ikat Fabric

I have been painting faux ikat "fabric" in a room I've been redoing this week (more on the whole room redo coming soon) and I thought I'd share how to do it with my readers. While the process is somewhat complex, the finished effect is amazing, and well worth the time it takes to complete!

As I considered the look I wanted, it occurred to me that I could take advantage of the threaded nature of the existing grasscloth and paint over it, making use of its pronounced vertical texture. The pulled thread look that is the hallmark of ikat would really pop on the texture of the grasscloth.

It's hard to see in the photo (above), but the grasscloth has very evident ridges.

My first design step was to pick paint colors. I decided to go with neutral colors that were in the backgrounds of the fabrics I had picked for the room. I chose all Benjamin Moore Aura paints in matte for the walls, semi gloss for the woodwork.

The base color was rolled on first. Often with Aura paints, second coats are unnecessary (totally justifying the high cost of this paint), however this grasscloth soaked up the first coat like a sponge, so I ended up doing two coats of the base color.

For my repeating pattern, I took inspiration from one of my favorite traditional Provençal prints (naturellement!), La Petite Fleur des Champs, from Souleiado. 

La Petite Fleur des Champs, in three colorways, (above).

I also drew inspiration from this slipper chair by Urban Outfitters (below, left) which is upholstered in Kiliman Ikat by Duralee, and calls to mind old Provençal repeated medallion designs. And I incorporated  the wavy element from my favorite ikats of all time, Pierre Frey's Toiles de Nantes (below, right). (The chair fabric is also available as at Calico Corners.)

I first stenciled the medallion shapes, and later put in the details by hand. To create my stencils, I printed out a size-appropriate black & white version of the pattern I wanted to use. Using an X-acto knife on a cutting mat, I painstakingly cut around the medallion, delineating lots - but not all - of the "pulled thread" lines. (Too many would have run together when the paint was applied.) I used 12" x 18" blank sheets from Stencil Ease, which I found at A. C. Moore (also available on their website).

This is what the cut stencil looked like before paint was rolled over it. Note that I marked the borders of the surrounding medallions for placement.

I used a small roller with a 3/8" nap to roll on the medallions. Normally with stencils, a foam roller is better, as it lays on a minimum of paint, but once again, this grasscloth needed extra paint (although I only had to do one coat here). It is necessary to roll inwards toward the center, all the way around the open design. Otherwise, paint collects in the small openings around the edges and pools under the stencil, creating unwanted blobs. It is also important to wash the stencil frequently, to avoid drying paint to build up and alter its outlines.

Once I had mapped out the distance I wanted between the medallions, I took some dark thread and pulled it across the wall, using a level to make sure the line was straight across, horizontally. I taped it in a couple of places to keep it from sagging.

After painting over the thread in even intervals, I pulled it off the wall (left) and was immediately struck by how much the thread resembled ikat dyed threads (right) - an expected coincidence which had no bearing on the design, but which I thought was really fun.

Ikat weave is created when the warp threads are first resist dyed before being strung on the loom, creating an uneven pattern (as in the example, below). This is what gives ikat its distinctive pulled thread look.

This is what the medallions looked like after painting them along the guide line.

I did all of the wavy lines (above) and the chevrons (below) by hand, just eyeballing where they should go, without measuring exactly. By its very nature, ikat is imperfect, so my random hand painted accents look natural.

Next, I cut a second stencil for the pattern inside the medallions. When cutting a stencil with various openings, make sure to leave little connectors between the various parts so that the whole stencil comes out as one piece. (If you forget, you can always tape a loose piece into place.)


After painting over the inner stencil pattern - this time with a flat stenciler's pouncer brush... 

...I went back by hand and connected the parts that had not gotten painted in, due to the connectors. I also went around and pulled out some of the lines, randomly with a thin artist's brush, to accentuate the ikat look and to individualize all of the medallions.

Immediately after stenciling (left) and then after adding details by hand (right).

The wavy lines after I went back and accentuated the "threads" by hand with a very thin artists' brush (above).

The finished pattern, after I added a border to finish the room.

I will admit that this process took me MUCH longer than I had anticipated, but I am really happy with the end result. Also, this can certainly be done without a base layer of grasscloth. I would love to hear from readers who try this in their own homes!