Pittsburgh, to be honest, has turned out to be a very rich place and robust place to put down business roots in a generally cold and uncertain business environment and at almost exactly one year to date of my arrival here fresh from the San Diego cityscape mural project, I feel like those roots are somewhat settled in for some real growth now.
 
Today, I’m actually balancing two different demands from two different businesses that are both my own, and the demands are mostly for new work in new opportunities on top of current obligations, both consulting and painting.
 
What I’ve come to realize (among other things) is that the two endeavors are more similar than is obvious, given the project design and production sequence and skills involved in custom service.
 
It is of course, truly wonderful to have appreciative and serious demand for your services as an independent business in this day and age, and as biz grows and work distribution shifts to larger team (coming soon, I believe) I’m looking forward to doing more kinds of stuff that’s had to wait in the life remodel of the last 18 months.
 
Near the top of my list is to edit and release literally tons of video and photos of some more cool San Diego custom art/contracting projects to satisfy that business itch, and in the anticipation I realized I had never shared this faux finish video I made back in 2007. A reasonably successful marketing experiment with 12,000 page views on last three years and consistent traffic drip to my main site with little to no help from me-- this is first time in either painting blog, website or other social media (I just posted tonight on my Facebook page, too.)
 
So check it out and just ignore the outdated titles for now-- I just made a new set for new video project on the way soon.

I’m posting a few of the different design pieces I worked up on the way to the cirus themed kids’ playroom I’ve been recently documenting in my murals and faux galleries.
 
Here is the set of samples just after the design meeting: the large “tent curtain” wall finish sample board, two smaller pieces of the circus-wagon-inspired playroom cabinet finish, and the fabric sample for the window treatments that started it all.

This is a detail of the playroom furniture finish I developed for the bookcase/desk combo in the circus themed room, one of the best playroom decorating ideas I’ve had the pleasure of working on.
 
I enjoy painting childrens furniture and baby furniture because it makes clients so happy, but usually its not much to look at in a photograph. This room, on the other hand, has lots of great details to look at for children’s playroom ideas (and beyond) because it was designed to fit into the historic home (full of aged wood, wrought iron and brass fixtures) where the room is, instead of being the usual Disney-esque request.
 
The idea for this finish sprang from vintage circus wagons and carousel ponies, with broken metallic gold accents over a creamy crackle finish. On the right you can see the beadboard that backs up the shelves, which is just washed down in the same umber acrylic glaze I used on the walls-- I usually reserve these elaborate crackle paint finishes for the “front and center” elements.
 

childrens painted furniture for circus playroom