Vickie’s Nail Salon

First, let me apologize for my lack of posting these past few months.  I have been enjoying my time with the kids being out of school.  That being said, I haven’t made the time to be on the computer or work much for that matter.  I’m trying to get back into the groove.  Less than three weeks until school starts again.

These pictures are of a nail salon I had the pleasure of doing a couple years ago.  The owner, Vicki is a great person.  She is very involved in our community and a great inspiration to any businesswoman.  I met her several years ago and we instantly hit it off.  It amazes me the amount of things she can pack into each day. 

After many years of being on Main Street, Wauconda her business was becoming too large for the space.  Vicki built a new facility with lots more room.  It’s got separate areas for the spa, facials, hair and nails.

I gave the upper half of the walls a colorwash treatment in an eggplant color.  The lower half was textured and colored to give it a limestone finish.

This was my second time doing a commercial job.  I ran into some problems with the other contractors, that did the prep work and base coating.  The walls were to be primed and base coated prior to me starting.  Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that the walls weren’t actually primed before the base coat was applied.  After taping off the stones and applying the texture, I allowed it to dry.  When I started peeling the tape off, it was removing more than just the tape.  The paint and everything all the way down to the drywall was coming off.  It was a complete nightmare.  After several discussions with the contractors, we got confirmation that the walls were never primed.  This meant I had to patch the areas that were ruined and prime the walls again.  Oh yeah, and redo all the taping and stone work.  Once this was done the stones were colored to create the look of limestone.

pedicure area

The wall behind the chairs is bronze with a turquoise colorwash.  I love this color combination.

This back wall has tissue paper for texture.  Then I applied copper paint and colorwashed with more turquoise.

It was a relief to finish this project given the problems I encountered along the way.  It was quite a learning experience for sure.  It goes to show why the prep work is one of the most important parts of the job. 

Vickie’s is a place I visit frequently.  It’s where my family goes for all our beauty needs.  We recently had the pleasure of celebrating my daughters’ 7th birthday there.  She invited five of her friends and I invited some of mine and together enjoyed some pampering.

The Lindy’s project…

Here is some work I did at a restaurant in town.  The place started out as a little neighborhood bar.  A couple years ago, they did a huge renovation.  Now, it’s one of the most beautiful buildings in town (in my opinion).  It’s also got an amazing view of Bangs lake.

This is the faux brick wall I painted along with the billboard sign with their logo.  It was a lot of fun painting the brick while the real brick layers were working on the brick columns shown in the same picture.

 

 

This is a close up of the billboard I painted on the brick wall.  I woodgrained it and gave it an aged look.  We wanted it to look like an old sign.

 

 

These columns behind the bar are also faux.  They wanted brick columns, but the bar wasn’t strong enough to hold real brick.  I got some pretty funny looks carrying in these brick columns.  People thought I was really strong.  It was pretty funny.

 

 

Finally, here is a picture of the ceiling I did for them.  It’s got an aged patina look.  It really finishes off the space.

Luckily, I was able to work on it at home and have it installed by one of the workers.

This is one of those jobs that you don’t get much recognition from, because most people think it’s real and not painted.  A couple of the waitresses get a kick out of telling the customers that it’s actually paint and not real brick.

Keep your eyes open.  You never know you might be looking at something painted instead of the real thing.  That’s what makes faux finishing so much fun.