French Laundry

The French Laundry of an extensively remodeled contemporary Atherton home.

Project Specs:

• 12' length x 8' width
• Built-in cabinets with open lattice details
• Smooth wall surfaces
• Marble countertops
• Stained Wood Doors and Trim
• Painted Wood Windows
• Quarried stone floors and baseboards

Project Notes:

A dishtowel inspired the French Laundry project. This modernized rural laundry is the brainchild of Judy Soblick, Heritage Designs. Judy provided me with most excellent direction, source materials and patience. She was willing to let me develop and experiment until I achieved her envisioned design goals. I learned subtly and less is more as the philosophic ground for my fine finishes.

During the initial brainstorming session, Judy displayed the dish towel and discussed itinerant French artists traveling the country-side painting stylized designs on hand plastered walls for food, money and lodging. Hey, I thought, I'll travel the French countryside for food, money and lodging. Where do I sign up? That idea of folk art, the dishtowel, and a sense of time stopped, led to our final creation.

The cabinets were blue from the start. I developed and mastered my best selling cabinet finish of 3 glaze layers with subtle antiquing and worn edge highlights on this project. Crisp Strie' brushstrokes, clean cabinet construction transitions, controlled subtle aging of crevices, and wiped worn edge highlights creating a sense of depth and time which characterized this cabinet finish.

The walls and ceilings started out smooth. I researched rural French plaster textures and techniques, mixed joint topping compound with three colors of latex paint, and created a "Po' man's Plaster" wall finish. This approach gave the walls a subtle brush texture with large color blend movements.

The dishtowel motif was sampled multiple times until I mastered the repetitive design shapes and could reproduce the pattern and scale literally blindfolded. I then layed out the borders, masked the lines with subtle movements, and began to hand paint the floral pattern.

What glorious fun! I painted those borders in ? of a day. I couldn't stop; the paint flowed off my brush on its on volition. Trades people came, ate lunch and watched like I was paint T.V. That sense of complete mastery, repetitive design, and joy defiantly shows in final product. I was the old school travelling artist earning my keep.

To re-create the towel's woven damask fabric textural feel, I imprinted 3-D stenciled fleur d' leis with heavy-bodied paint. The effect was very soft and only visible from oblique angles and under certain lighting conditions. Really effective. The final step was a 3-color highly transparent brush wash over all the wall and ceiling surfaces to unify the sheen and send the surfaces back in time.

The French Laundry epitomizes the beauty of a final product created through the marriage of fine design, stellar construction, and artistic craftsmanship.

-Julie Street