We were recently asked by our artist friend and gallery owner, Ron York to do a short presentation at the  ASID Tennessee (American Society of Interior Designers) monthly meeting. I jumped at the opportunity to address this influential group of designers and I actually already had my speech prepared in my head. I’d been writing it for years. I have been dreaming of having just this kind of opportunity where I could address some of the bad press that faux finishes have received over the last several years and also showcase some of the fresh, innovative faux finish applications being utilized in today’s current room designs.

My passion for this topic began about six years ago when we were launching our faux finish painting business. This just seemed like a logical next step. Brooks is a true artist, he just sees things differently. I am a born marketer and business person who has built a very successful career in advertising. I thought that launching our faux finishing business would be a piece of cake. I started by calling interior designers to try to arrange meetings to show them our portfolio. On the rare occasions when I could get a designer on the phone, their typical response was, “I don’t use faux finishes in my designs. They are out dated”. My initial thoughts were, “Oh crap! We are in the wrong business”. Then I started to realize that what really needed to happen was that the design community needed to be educated on the innovative new use of products and modern finish applications by the professionals in our industry. The faux finish industry had become tainted by the do it yourself painters and all the straight painting companies who claimed to also be faux finishers. There is a definite separation between the professional faux finishers and the rest. I just needed to craft the right message and deliver it to the right audience and this was my chance. I was taking it.

So here are the highlights of my presentation, I also used a ton of pictures to illustrate my key points.

“Style Trends in decorative painting”

One of my strategies was to use the term “decorative painting” in place of “faux finish” to subliminally move the designers away from the negative implications of the term “faux finish”. If this picture is what you think of when you think about a “faux finish” you are going to be pleasantly surprised by what I am going to show you.

DIY 80's faux finish gone terribly wrong

This is an actual photo of a DIY faux finish that was in the basement of our new house six months ago. And these walls were our very first re-painting project.

Some of the reasons for a bad faux finish are:

• diy gone terribly wrong
• lack of training
• wrong products used
• improper use of color and texture
• no artistic vision

Some of the things that distinguish us as professional finishers:

• studied under some of the leaders in the industry
• actively practicing our craft every day
• long list of references of satisfied clients and designers
• award winning finishes and designs
• always on top of trends in the industry

One of the reasons some designers don’t use faux finishes in their designs is because they are working with a neutral palette. So, I wanted to show some examples of faux finishes that were successfully incorporated into neutral design projects. One way to do that is to use faux finishes to highlight architectural features like moldings, stove hoods, and fireplaces. Here are some examples:

Highlight architectural features like moldings. We did not do the finish below, but it illustrates my point about how you can use glazed moldings in a neutral palette to add depth and character.

Design by Dana Goodman from the Southern Living Show House, Nashville, TN

You could also faux a stove hood to look like metal.

faux finised pewter stove hood by Bella Tucker Decorative Artisans

Add texture to an existing fireplace by adding a faux limestone finish.

Faux finish limestone by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

Add a tone on tone pattern or texture.

Ikat stenciled patio by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

Make the powder bath a jewel box. Most people are willing to be a little more adventurous in the powder bath. Make it something special.

Powder Bath finish by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes.

Painting on canvas. It’s a natural progression for faux artists to take their art off the walls and onto canvas. And of course, every neutral palette needs a pop of color. This is one of my favorites by Mindy Harrell of Faux Assured Studio.

Canvas Art by Mindy Harrell of Faux Assured Studio

Some of the current trends in professional faux finishing include:

stenciling

Custom Stencil by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

cabinets (don’t replace your out of date cabinets, paint them, even melamine and thermofoil can be painted)

Island painted in Annie Sloan Paint Graphite by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

painted floors (big trend on decor blogs and at the Design Blogger’s Conference last year)

Painted Floor by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

the fifth wall (don’t forget the ceiling)

Stenciled Ceiling by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

painted furniture (the blogoshpere has exploded with painted furniture)

This piece is going with me to the nursing home.

metallic paints and foils

Aluminum Metallic Painted Wall by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

reactive paint (metal paints that rust when an activator is applied)

Rusted Metal Wall Finish by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

The presentation concluded with me asking the designer for questions. We had a few. I also had several designers thank me for the presentation and I’ve had a handful of calls for projects and expect more in the future. I am extremely grateful to Ron York for the chance to get in front of this group and showcase the current trends in faux finishing. If you would like to talk to us about incorporating a modern faux finish into your interior design plan. Please contact us at 615-500-1517 or fill out the form HERE.

Ready for our next makeover update? We’ve been in our new house since November and have only had time to tackle a few projects, but one of my favorites is our fireplace makeover.

Fireplace makeover by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

I’ve written about a few fireplace makeovers we have done for other people and they are always some of our most visited posts, so I thought it might be fun to show you what we did in our own home.

Here is what the fireplace looked like when we first visited our new home.

The fireplace before with orange paint, dark brick, dark bookcases and boring mantel.

It had orange walls that Brooks really had an issue with. He made it his personal mission to rid the house of the orange walls at his first available opportunity. It also had orange-y red brick, dark wood bookcases and a blah mantel. So, he painted the surrounding walls in Sherwin Williams, Worldly Gray. He painted the brick and bookcases with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Old White. Continue reading »

What a crazy last few months it has been. Aside from our regular workload we participated in two show houses, bought a house that wasn’t for sale, sold our house without a realtor, moved, remodeled the kitchen, hosted Thanksgiving for thirteen at the new house, and have actively been updating several rooms. Whew! Time for a deep breath.

I was going to wait to tell this story until we got the kitchen completed, but with our current work load, (thank you Jesus!) I don’t think it’s going to be anytime soon. So, I thought I would go ahead and share a few of the details and projects with you. So, here goes…

Last year, one of my very best friends bought a house on 4 1/2 acres. I visited her often over the last year and every time I was there I would tell her how much I wanted to move to her new neighborhood. I knew every house that was for sale, the square footage, the acreage, the sales price. I had made it my mission to find us a place out there. After many months with no such luck, she suggested that I leave notes in people’s mailboxes to see if they would like to sell their houses. On a whim, one Friday afternoon, I did just that. I rode through the neighborhood and left notes for about 8 people. Secretly, I had one house in my heart.

The house on my heart

About two weeks passed and I got a call from a guy who said he had gotten my note and was interested in talking to me. He owned the house next door to my friend. The one I had secretly longed for. He was very skeptical at first. I know he thought I was crazy. Long story short, we reached an agreement on price, I listed my house with a flat fee MLS service and sold it in 30 days.

So, this new house has a great layout, beautiful property and gorgeous floors. It did, however, need some cosmetic updating. Our first project was the kitchen. Here is a before shot.

Kitchen before with dark cabinets, soffits, short cabinets, bad lighting

I hated the soffits hanging from the ceiling.

Refrigerator floating in the room, wall oven, cook top, dark cabinets before

Since we had a shoestring budget, my vision was to tear out the soffits and build the cabinets up to the ceiling.

We removed the soffits from the kitchen cabinets

Soffits removed and cabinets built up to the ceiling

Cabinets built to the ceiling. Now they need paint.

Since Brooks paints cabinets for a living, I knew that we could unify the cabinets with a couple of coats of paint. With our crazy hectic schedule, we have only had time to put on one coat of paint, so the paint finish is still a work in progress.

Kitchen Makeover Mostly Complete

We need to add another coat of paint, and some protective wax. And add some new hardware. This is a custom color we mixed with Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. It is 50% Pure White and 50% French Linen. We painted the island in Graphite.

Island painted in Annie Sloan Paint Graphite

Wall oven removed, refrigerator built in, cabinets built up and painted.

We also removed the original wall oven, removed the cook top and the cabinet underneath it and dropped in a double oven range. We built the additional cabinetry around the refrigerator and added storage above.

Refrigerator built in with chalk board wall

Now that we had ripped out the soffits we had to deal with the ceilings.

Ripping out the soffits left a damaged popcorn ceiling

Rather than patching the holes with drywall, removing the popcorn texture and painting the ceiling, we opted for something a little different. I found these faux tin ceiling tiles that were made out of Styrofoam.

Styrofoam ceiling tiles glue right on top of popcorn ceilings

You cut them to size with an exacto knife and glue them right to the popcorn ceiling. It took about a day and a half to install, but I could not be happier with the way it turned out.

Styrofoam glue up ceiling tiles. An amazing transformation.

I also have to mention the walls.

Aluminum Metallic Painted Wall by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

Brooks applied an aluminum metallic paint with a roller and let it drip and drag in a random pattern. I love it!

While we had the ceiling torn out we also upgraded the lighting. We added 10 can lights in a grid pattern around the room. We removed the original ceiling fan and centered the new chandelier over the table. We also installed these two pendant shades over the island and added a lantern over the sink.

New Kitchen Lighting

Hope you enjoyed the kitchen makeover preview. The total project cost was about $4000 not including the new refrigerator and oven. I bought those at the Sears Outlet for $2500 total. The pendant lights and the lantern came from Overstock. The Capiz shell chandelier came from West Elm. The bar stools came from Southeastern Salvage. If you would like to makeover your kitchen, we would love to talk to you. You can schedule a consultation by contacting us HERE.

Next up, I’ll take you on a tour of the new den and the fireplace makeover.

Modello Skimstone Ikat floor at Nashville Southern Living Showcase Home

To say that we have had a busy 4th quarter would be a huge understatement. Not only did we have the immense privilege of providing decorative faux finishes in two premiere home tours, we also bought a house that wasn’t for sale, sold our house without a realtor, moved, and underwent a major kitchen renovation all while juggling the usual client relationship and money making balls all at the same time. Whew!!! That’s me taking a huge breath. I know there will be more blog posts to follow with details of the above projects, but today I wanted to recap our faux finish and decorative painting projects at the Nashville Southern Living Showcase Home built by Castle Homes.

We ended up providing faux finishes and decorative painting in several different areas of the home. We had the pleasure of working with the extremely talented and super organized, Kristen Finney of Finney Interiors. Kristen invited me to the first meeting with the builder and designers to discuss the rooms to be designed. The designers got to submit their request for the rooms they wanted to design. Kristen and I were immediately on the same page. Both of us being avid readers of Southern Living Magazine, we knew that outdoor spaces were a huge focus for the magazine. We knew that if Southern Living did a story on the house it would include the outdoor space. Continue reading »

What a great time we had last night at the Homebuilder’s Association of Middle Tennessee’s Parade of Homes preview party in Annandale Community. It was our first opportunity to tour all of the finished homes and there are definitely some talented folks involved in the parade this year. We are very fortunate to have worked with an amazing team of people. Julie Couch is one of the most talented designers we have ever worked with. Watch out for her. She is on her way to huge things in the design world. Also, working with Carbine & Associates was amazing. These guys are professional, and organized and fun and creative. We definitely hit the jackpot. We were honored to take home an award for the “Best Wall Treatments” for our faux finishes and also provided a ceiling treatment for the award winning, “Best Child’s Room”.

Brooks Tucker, Julie Couch, Dana Tucker with HBAMT Parade of Homes Award

Congrats to Julie Couch and everyone at Carbine & Associates for a job well done. Here are a few photos of the home.

Stenciled Ceiling by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

HBAMT Parade of Homes winning design by Julie Couch

Room design by Julie Couch. Stenciled wall by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

Dining Room design by Julie Couch. Wall treatment by Bella Tucker Decorative Finishes

The Home Builders Association of Middle Tennessee Parade of Homes opens Saturday, September 24 and runs daily through Sunday, October 9 between 11am-8pm in the Annandale Community in Brentwood, TN.

If you’d like to talk to us about how to give your home award winning Parade of Homes style please email me at dana@bella-tucker.com

You never know how a chance encounter with another person is going to influence your work or your life. Last January, I packed my bags and boarded a plane for Los Angeles to attend the first ever Design Blogger’s Conference. It was a fabulous event with fact packed sessions and wonderful networking opportunities. After a talk by uber successful Designer, Tobi Fairley, I was hanging out to ask her a question. I overheard her talking to another designer who was asking her about photographing her work for submission to publications. I overheard her say she was from Nashville. That’s all I needed to hear. I jumped right into the conversation and introduced myself. Julie Couch and I have been fast friends ever since.

Julie mentioned that she was designing a home for the 2011 Nashville, TN Parade of Homes in the Annandale Community. I immediately offered to help her with her decorative painting. I’m paraphrasing her response here, “I’m not really into faux finishes”. I said, “I hear that a lot from designers, but have you seen the fresh new ways that decorative painters are keeping up with modern design?” She agreed to a meeting once we got back into town. I showed up armed and ready with lots of photos on my computer, links to my curated images on Pinterest,  and a couple of books including, Kelly Wearstler’s book, HUE that showcased lots of really modern applications for decorative paint treatments.

Kelly Wearstler's book HUE

She got excited about the possibilities and “just like that” we were collaborating together on some cool finishes for the showcase home. Continue reading »

Do any two words conjure up images of sophistication and stylish living more than the words, “Southern Living”? I can still remember the time I saw my first Southern Living Magazine.

Southern Living Magazine Idea House Cover

It was about 10 years ago. I had just moved into a new home and was invited to a Southern Living at Home party in the new neighborhood. This was an in home party much like a Tupperware party, except they were selling beautiful home decor items. As a special deal that night, you could also get a subscription to Southern Living Magazine for under $10. Little did I know how much that one decision to order that magazine that night would influence  my personal decorating style over the next few years.

My family knew that on the days those magazines came in the mail that I was to be undisturbed, alone with my Southern Living Magazine until it was read cover to cover. My favorite issues were the ones that included the design concept homes. I would study each photo, read every caption and the accompanying article, trying to wring every last design secret from the pages. I absorbed the images and ideas like a sponge and then used them as inspiration in both our home and our decorative painting business.  When I heard that Castle Homes was designing and building a Southern Living Showcase Home in Nashville, I was thrilled. When our business was invited to participate by providing decorative finishes for the Showcase House, I was over the moon.

Southern Living Showcase Home in progress by Castle Home Builders

Working with the design team at Castle Home Builders has been a great experience. There are 13 designers participating in the home. Each one is designing a room. We were asked to submit a design for the downstairs powder bath. Most of the downstairs of the home is being finished in silvery greys and pearly whites. So, in keeping with that palette, we are created a Royal Design Studio stenciled finish that has shimmer and bling. Here is our inspiration photo.

Chez Sheik stencil by Royal Design Stencils

Here is our sample board.

Bella Tucker sample board for Nashville Southern Living Showcase Home

We will also be doing a distressed silver foil finish on the ceiling.

Bella Tucker ceiling sample finish for Nashville Southern Living Showcase Home

It’s going to be fabulous. Continue reading »

I’ve written about painted furniture before. I have a deep affection for old and chippy paint finishes. As a matter of fact, I am curating quite the collection of enviable paint finishes that I have found in my travels across the Internet. I’m saving these finishes on my Painted Furniture pin board on Pinterest. Each time I run across a beautiful painted piece that I don’t want to forget, I pin it so I can use it as inspiration later. If you don’t know about Pinterest yet, you can read about it in my Pinterest for Artists and Designers post I wrote for Fauxology.

Over the years I have developed quite the addiction to thrifting and yard sale-ing. In an ideal world, I would spend my days surfing Craig’s list and Ebay and foraging antique stores, flea markets, and thrift stores. I would find amazing gently loved pieces and then Brooks would magically transform them and re-purpose them into works of art. That dream is moving one step closer to reality. We have jumped off and rented a booth space at Arbor Antique Mall in Franklin, TN. It’s about 30 minutes south of Nashville, TN. It is one of my favorite shops for finding unique treasures and was at the top of my list of places to start selling our painted furniture.

We open shop in October. So in the meantime we are on the hunt for furniture pieces that we can transform. Local friends, please keep us in mind if you run across any good deals or if you know anyone who is looking to get rid of some vintage pieces. We are looking for rough pieces. Something with a damaged finish like this.

Damaged furniture finish

That we can transform into something like this.

Refinished table

up close detail of table finish

Or something that is dated like this cherry wood mismatched finish that we can re-do with a one of a kind finish like this.

Cherry entertainment center with mismatched wood finish

Entertainment center makeover

furniture finish detail

Or a set of chairs that can be painted and recovered to take them from drab to fab.

drab old cherry wood chairs

fab painted chairs

fab painted chairs in their new home

We are also looking for archictectural pieces like this.

cool architectural piece

As a matter of fact, I have made a list. If you have any of these things, please drop me a line. We’d be interested in talking to you.

1. Old furniture with great details, inlays, dove-tailed corners, turned legs, damaged finishes
2. vintage or antique books
3. old picture frames
4. mirrors, especially the gold ornate ones
5. old cake or pie tins with a cool patina
6. old maps or globes
7. wire baskets
8. wood pallets
9. lamp shades
10. grandfather clocks
11. serving trays
12. old lockers

We’d be interested in other stuff too, so keep us in mind. And wish us luck on our new venture in the painted furniture business in the Nashville area- Franklin, TN.

Because making over rooms is our self prescribed therapy, we have yet another room we recently completed to share with you. Our daughter, Zoey just turned 11. She had out grown her princess room and was ready for something a little more sophisticated.

Zoey's Princess Bedroom

princess room before

We started discussing the makeover about a year ago. I showed her lots of pictures of different design styles and together we decided on a style we called, “Hollywood Glam”. Our Hollywood Glam room would include first and foremost a tufted headboard. This is a picture that I saved in my inspiration file.

our inspiration photo for the headboard

Continue reading »