great room/great wall

this project will go down in history with the young joneses as “the great wall of oxford”.  a super-darling and enthusiastic lovely client invited me to oxford, mississippi to give her built-ins a soft, furniture-y, distressed finish.  in all of our excited back-and-forth about finishes, colors, and timing, i sort of breezed past the photos of the space she kindly sent – without asking for measurements. let me repeat: i did not ask for measurements. imagine, then, me peeling into town on two wheels with three days set aside for the project, and finding that not only is her lovely home lovely, it is large. really large.  here is the before (with a base coat – benjamin moore’s linen white, #912):

she kept me exceedingly well-fed (pimiento cheese from olivia’s food emporium, burgers from phillips grocery, chicken-salad-salad from panini, home-made bran muffins and banana nut bread – all divine!) & caffeinated, though, and somehow (helped along by taking the twelve shelves home to do over the weekend) it all got wrapped up on time.

(my highly-skilled, artistic client and i had also discussed a layered, distressed finish for her kitchen island.  with the tight timing and spring break looming, she was game to take brush in hand herself and let me coach her through doing the island from the next room, rather than wait for another opening in the calendar.  she did a fantastic job!)

back in the great room: layers of paint (pratt & lambert’s contemplation, #19.28), wax, and glaze later, things will look really fabulous when she adds her choice of hardware, lines the backs of the wire cabinet doors with a silk & linen burlap, and gets the books unpacked and shelves arranged.  until those photos arrive, here is a sneak peek:

i am so glad she called.  it was really fun.