One of the hospitality projects we recently worked on was the Japanese restaurant, Wa, in Orlando, FL. Their construction and design was put together by WDG Interior Architecture and the Daniel Corporation. It was a pleasure to work with their teams and quite frankly, they requested some of the most delicious color combination samples we’ve ever worked on. The winning finish was a Venetian plaster with a texture twist — it had a chocolate base finished with a rich gold metallic overlay.
The Orlando Sentinel recently wrote a review which gave their cuisine a glowing recommendation and said this of the atmosphere:
“Entering the front door feels like stepping into the restaurant of a boutique hotel in a much larger city. The interior is splashed with hues of chocolate, cinnamon and nutmeg with flints of gold. The decor is modern chic, with roomy booths and classy, austere tables.”
Although we worked on just a bit of space, I thought I’d share photographs of not only our work but the other design elements as well.
[BELOW] Walking in (left) you are greeted by a flowers, serene lighting and a beautiful black stone wall with black grout. To see the closeup of the magnificent granite in the reception area, click here. There is also seating area (right) with an unusual glossy wood wallcovering.
[BELOW] Here is a nice shot of our Venetian Plaster finish. There is a closeup shot available. OK, maybe even a closer one.
[BELOW] The ladies room (which featured beautiful touches such as the striking granite and embedded patterned tiles) and a bar with beautiful wood touches and comfortable seating. I wish the metallic sheen of the barstool fabric translated — it’s truly nice to see and feel.
[BELOW] Before and After
Being that I am a huge fan of Japanese cuisine, you can imagine my happiness at working with Wa. My husband, Chris, and I were joined by friends on our first outing to the restaurant and since then we have returned numerous times (including for a beautiful Valentine’s Day dinner). They have an authentic Japanese menu, fresh and unique sushi (always a plus), a versatile sake list and an extraordinary manner of presentation. I hope you have a chance to experience the beauty of Wa.
Gilding is a beautiful art form — and one of the most ancient. It is a decorative technique that involves applying very slim sheets of metallic leaf (or, powders) onto a surface, hence why most gilded finishes are recognizable by a traditional square pattern. (Although I once saw a rectangular “brick” placement in a restaurant ceiling. Very, very nice.) You can also hear the term “gold leafing” used to describe the technique as well. The organization, Society of Gilders, has one of the best sites to obtain information, access visuals, understand the different disciplines within the art form and familiarize yourself with the extraordinary artisans who work with these precious materials. I encourage you to review their website with a nice cup of coffee and a bit of leisure time.
We’ve had quite a few leafing commissions (you’ve seen our latest, the silver leafed dome) but one of our favorites was done for the home of a designer we work with. Here is her formal living room ceiling, close-up and full view. The full view showcases the tri-color neutral Venetian plaster on the walls and the glossy black coat we put on all the trim.
I’ve also found some other images — if you know the artisans, please let me know so I can credit them. On the left, is gilded trimwork and the pic on the right features Common Ground’s Prince George Neo-Renaissance ballroom. For more pics of the ballroom, click here — it must have been incredible to work on the restoration!
Previously featured in Florida Design, are a gorgeous piece of Henredon furniture (left) and artwork (right)…
On the left is an entryway designed by the ubiquitous Barbara Barry and on the right is an entrance hallway designed by Alfred Karram and featured in Florida Design. He noted on the article that the ceiling “creates a striking sense of arrival”. Mmm-hmmm.
…and finally, Les Trois Domes, the penthouse restaurant in the Hotel Sofitel Bellecour in Lyon, France, has molded plaster that has been silver leafed. Striking! The design is by Studio Norguet, the photography by Renaud Callebaut and the feature is from Interior Design magazine.
Both true gold and other metal alloys are used in the creation of these thin sheets — and some are created to be edible. Although metallic paints are beautiful, they do not come close to lustre of leaf so the choosing of which metallic products to use in a particular technique will depend on your desired final effect. Some of the most popular sources for leafing products are Sepp Leaf, Easy Leaf, The Gilded Planet and The Gold Leaf Company. Two teaching studios I hear good things about are the Lynne Rutter Studio (San Francisco, CA) and Cait Whitson’s Carte Blanche in Scotland. The previously-mentioned Society of Gilders site also has an Education page where you can find workshops listed by state.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief foray into gilding. Did I miss anything? I look forward to your comments…
I realized that I’d forgotten to share some of the projects we’ve done. Bad blogger!!! Well, in the past few months, we have been working on quite a few restaurants. I will spotlight a few of them in the coming weeks but we’ll start with Marie Livingston’s Steakhouse in Tallahassee, FL. The restaurant has been voted Tallahassee’s best steakhouse for the past several years and yet even with these accolades, Mrs. Livingston decided to not only build a new location but also create a cozier, more sophisticated atmosphere.
She brought in Orlando-based architectural firm The Evans Group for their professional expertise. We worked with their design team, Karen Guindi and A.J. Falbo, who picked unique finishes for many of the restaurant’s spaces. Karen Guindi describes the design as a “contemporary twist on a Charleston flavor”. Here’s our tour:
The exterior Courtyard shares its space with the Main Entrance. A faux marble was requested for the background of the restaurant’s large sign. To see a close-up, click here.
Once you walk in, you will see a small dome above the Reception. The designers liked the idea of a distressed silver leaf – they wanted the black base showing through the leaf and the squares not so perfectly set. To see the setting, here’s a Before pic.
Moving to the main Dining Area, there was a curved accent wall that was begging for a special finish. A two-toned Venetian Plaster with a pearl mica overlay was chosen. I believe they will be putting a piano in that area. Click on the pics for a larger version.
In the Ladies Room, a Luster Leaf finish was applied to the walls. This is a visual after we finished but before it was completed. Still to come were beautiful light fixtures, mirrors, a chandelier and other accents. To see a closeup of the finish, click here.
Finally, there was a faux Ostrich Skin designated for the three booth areas in the Bar. Although we do not have final pics, we do have a close-up of the finish. The colorations were chosen to blend with the fabrics of the custom-made curved booths.
We will be travelling back to take final photographs but I thought you’d enjoy the above in the meantime. Have a wonderful day!
Ahhh, New Year = New Outlook! When you hear the words “Antique Mirror” you think a beautifully aged looking glass — perhaps in a French chateau, perhaps in panels in an upscale hotel lobby. We LOVE those mirrors but also look forward to all the new patinas and designs you can do as well. This month, we premiere our Mirror of the Month: Mod Chic. It is not an antiqued miror per se, but it features one of many retro-forward designs available and can be done in any coloration and almost any size. Mmmm, now we’re talking!
Our studio produces creates these patinas and many more to ship world-wide. They can be cleaned and installed like a regular mirror and best of all, add a bit of visual oomph. What could be better? Please be sure to check out the rest of our gallery as well. We have a special newsletter for the Design trade and if you are interested in receiving it, please fill out our Contact Us form, send a Tweet to @Fauxology or simply e-mail a request to Info@GarayArtisans.com — we look forward to hearing from you!
“Be careful what you wish for” has been a recurring theme in my life. When I started the Fauxology blog, my goal was to reach out to fellow kindred spirits to share my love and obsession for all things Art. In the years since, I’ve interacted with some of the best artisans in the world and have gained lifelong friendships. Couldn’t get any better, right?
Then, I was contacted by the wonderful Home Workshop, a daily blog that focuses on design trends, how-to projects, transformation of rooms, products in the marketplace and so much more. They were looking for a Decorative Painting & Surface Design Expert to answer questions and contribute posts for their readers — would I be interested? Of course! So, now, the dream of sharing my knowledge continues to an even greater degree — heaven help my somewhat-insatiable curiosity!
My first post for Home Workshop revolves around a recent research trip to Bok Tower & Gardens, a national historic site here in Central Florida. To read the full post, click here — it features some of the gorgeous landscaping and good reference shots. You can also read my bio on the Contributor page. I do hope you enjoy the post and the Home Workshop blog! In the meantime, I shall still be writing for all my amazing peers here at Fauxology and have some great posts coming up. Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season so far!
Just a recap — Nibblers are bits of info all rolled up inside one crunchy candy post. [Long-time readers, that info is for the Newbies. Sorta like the "Previously on The Good Wife" and then they go into last week's montage? That was my montage. OK, onward and clearly not upward...] At the time of this posting, we will probably be en route to Tallahassee, FL for a few weeks to work on a beautiful restaurant set to open soon. I will try to blog as much as I can. In the meantime, we’ll always have this post, won’t we? Let’s hit the ground running…
1) Kass Wilson, author and fellow TalkFaux moderator is holding a free webinar for decorative painters entitled “Creating Visual Marketing Tools”. Here’s her description: “The webinar will show you innovative ways to create your own visual marketing tools to help your business. We will also be discussing interesting ways you can use your new tools to capture the attention of your potential clients.” Kass always has great ideas for artists to market themselves. The live webinar is free and it happens Wednesday, November 4th from 9 pm – 10:30 pm, EST. To register, click on this link — you’ll be sent a confirmation via e-mail and you are ready to go. BTW, Kass also has a blog, Design Visions, that you can check out.
2) Speaking of blogs, Yours Truly wrote an article on them for the Fall issue of The Faux Finisher. You can check out the article PDF here: So You’d Like to Start a Blog or if you’d prefer to see the entire issue, you can e-mail me at Regina@GarayArtisans.com and I’ll make sure to get one to you. [But remember I'm going to be out of town for a few weeks, k?] Rebecca Parsons also wrote a great article on blogging in the same issue but, unfortunately, I don’t have that PDF. Hope you get a chance to read both of them!
3) Laser Excel is having a contest revolving around the free stencils they give out at tradeshows, that are found at Stencil Cafe or that come with each issue of Artisphere, IDAL’s magazine. They are looking for the most outstanding projects done with these stencils and the submission deadline is November 23rd. For more info and to upload your pics, you’ll need to to to their Stencils at Laser Excel Facebook page…and note that they will be judged solely on Creativity and Overall Design, so slipping them a twenty won’t work. Good Luck!
4) Finally, I actually came upon the only picture I have of my first project ever, 1998. It was a guest bath whose walls were painted light blue and I used the existing paint to add the same light blue to the ceiling. Then, I added a picket fence and birds, via stencils, all along the walls. [BTW, I do recall saying a few choice words at getting that stencil behind the toilet perfectly. That was the first time I thought "Well, this isn't as glamorous as I thought it would be!"] I painted clouds on the ceiling but you can’t see those, thankfully. I remember that I was so excited that someone wanted me to paint their home that I asked her if I could keep the stencils as payment after she bought them. (shaking head, smiling) Ah, young lunacy love!
You know, it just hit me that I created an indoor outhouse. Hmmm. Let’s never speak of this again…
By now, you’ve seen the Garay Artisans HD Boutique booth. While that took a lot of teamwork, there were some marketing efforts behind the scenes also centered around our Alice’s Journey Through the Looking Glass theme.
When we do trade shows, we make a point to target special design firms that we’d like to have visit our booth. But, how to do that? I mean, designers are literally bombarded daily with all manner of trades, including the competition. Why should they be concerned with our company? The way we try to stand out is to send invites. But not just any invites — no, no. We can’t leave well enough alone!
The packages we sent were small white rabbits with invitations nestled within the box. They were either hand-delivered or carefully shipped. The purpose of the white rabbit? Well, to follow it to our booth, of course! We made beautiful antique mirror coasters as Thank You! gifts to the designers who were kind enough to come by and introduce themselves after receiving our invite. Here’s the pics of the whole shebang:
So, here’s the process. 1) Identify the firms you’d like to work with — ten or so should be good. 2) Send them a Very Special Invite to a presentation or a trade show you are exhibiting at. 3) At the conference, have a special gift for them as a Thank You! for taking the time to come see you. 4) Follow up with them — chances are that if you spend a good amount of time putting together a beautiful presentation, you will spend a good amount of time putting together a beautiful space for their client. :)
While at the show, we had to give away business cards. We did do our usual attachment of finish samples, but we also added a tiny bottle with a “Drink Me” tag attached. (It made everyone giggle.) The Drink Me tag had a raffle number printed on it — at the end of the show, we put up two numbers on our website’s home page and these two individuals won two handmade framed antique mirrors. So, all those who took away business cards were really enticed to visit our company website to see if they won. That’s what I call a Win-Win. Here’s the pic:
By the way, we bought those cute little bottles from Maria Dellos at Maria’s Art Creations. I have to mention her because she was so helpful and went above and beyond to help find us the perfect tiny bottles — please visit her cute site. BIG thanks also go to Karen Donnelly (our website guru) for her immense creativity and guidance, Skype calls at 3 am and immeasurable help in putting it all together. Hope you’ve enjoyed these ideas! We’ll talk soon…
Garay Artisans took a booth again at the HD Boutique Show this past September. HD Boutique is a conference for interior designers in the hospitality industry. It’s a terrific show for those of us heavily involved in the commercial side of the decorative arts. I knew that on top of our faux finishing portfolio, we were going to strongly promote our antique ornamental mirror services so it was imperative that we pick a theme. It came down to Snow White (”Mirror, Mirror on the Walls” — actually I was going to call it Mirror Mirror & the Walls or “Brewing Up Magical Finishes That Will Leave Your Clients Enchanted”) or Alice in Wonderland (”Journey Through the Looking Glass”). The team took a vote and Alice it was.
The drawing above, representing our back wall, started the whole shebang. It was drawn up by my brother Jason and fellow artisan, Monica Zeuli, while at a bar enjoying live music. (Seriously. They actually called me, too. Excitedly. That’s commitment, folks.) Then it was taken by our web girl, Karen Donnelly, and drawn out graphically (below). We now had a visual to use as a jumping off point.
We decided that we were going to build the back panel and cut out the “frames” for the live antique mirrors to go up against. We also ordered the lettering from Modello and bought checkerboard flooring instead of having regular carpet. The purchases continued with shelving and we luckily had furniture loaned to us by Morris & Kalm, a staging company we work with. (While touring their super-large storage facility, we came across a White Rabbit figurine. Kismet.) Here’s some during pics with Jason & Monica.
Since we’ve done many trade shows and have learned never to leave anything to chance, we did a run-through and set up the entire booth in part of our warehouse space within a taped out 10′ x 10′ space. I highly suggest you do this if setting up for a conference — it outlined many of the things we needed to fix and be prepared for. We then took it all apart and loaded our van. Here’s a pic while we were setting it up.
Here’s some pics of us before the show. That’s my hubby, Chris, putting up the brackets for the computer screens that would be showing a slideshow of our work. They were going on both ends of the booth. It did take a village putting this together.
Below, the final shots of our space. Are you surprised to see Alice there? Actually, that’s Karen, our webgirl, and since her middle name is Alicia, that’s what her badge said. She was pitch-perfect — and I can’t tell you how much of a popular draw she was. Monica and I went dressed as the Tweedle Divas. We both had the same outfit on during the show — striped top, black pants, colored scarf.
It was two-day show and it tooks weeks to prepare for — but we can count it as a definite success. I hope this inspires you to dream up your own trade show booth! We do have a Part Two coming next week with some of the marketing stuff we did beforehand to help ensure success. I think you’ll like it…
It’s been a while since I teased you with this post. We finally had some time to photograph the antique damask mirror we did for the wonderful Zou Zou Boutique. Wendy Ricci, the owner, designed the shop herself and I think she added some beautiful elements — from the fabrics to the distressed tin panels to the lighting fixtures. It’s a very bohemian, eclectic and completely fashionable shop. Here are some pics:
Our Mirror!
A few shots of the interior (you can see our mirror reflected in the right pic)…
Love the mix of fabrics and textures…and how fun is that dressing room on the left?
I seriously need these pretty racks in my home…ok, the clothes can come, too…
A few more views of our mirror (the left one taken before the shop opened)…
Some of the yumminess in the shop: distressed frames and light fixtures with whimsical birds…
The pics below are exterior shots (on an overcast day, sorry). The fountain is just outside Zou Zou’s front door! It took a while to get two shots with no one in the picture. :)
I hope you’ve enjoyed the Zou Zou Boutique tour and the mirror! Please check out Zou Zou’s site — you’ll see more info on their beautiful first location (the above is the second and hasn’t made their site yet). If you are ever in the Orlando area, I hope you have a few moments to step in. Have a great weekend!
Recently, we were asked to provide the antique mirrors for the beautiful Bohemian Hotel in Savannah, GA. Not just any antique mirrors — mirrors with splashes of copper and gold to line all seven guest hallways & elevator platforms as well as mirrors with plums and antique copper patinas for the back wall of the lobby. The interior design was approved by Savannah’s Historic Review Board and although it has a contemporary design, it also channels a vintage allure that recalls the era when settlers first arrived.
The sibs and I have traveled together before but this was the first time we all took our loved ones — and we headed to the hotel’s Grand Opening weekend! The Gorgeous Hubster and I had a beautiful room on the 4th floor with a balcony that opened up to a riverfront view. The room was super high-tech and the bathroom had handcarved furniture, gorgeous light fixtures and yummy goodies. Take a look at the view from the rooftop bar!
Here’s the best images we have — mirrors are hard to photograph. Our opinion is that they look better in person, hope that doesn’t sound presumptuous. Can’t wait to see the pro pics!
During our stay, we took the town by storm. (Or, I should say the town took us by storm. There was a lot of walking — and rain — involved.) Here’s images from the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, both exterior and interior.
Walking around Savannah, you can see how important decorative ironworks were to their history. It’s said to have been chosen due to its resistance to the constant threat of fire. Here are two examples and although you might think the gate on the right is all leaves, it does have a secret squirrel.
