Dining room wall stencil// living room glazed mantel

This is a dining room I finished using a stencil on the upper walls. I skim-coated the upper walls to afford a smooth surface for the stencil.Off-white base coat, mottled stencil work in silver. Topped off with a van dyke glaze sponged and stippled over the entire wall to dirty up the finish. The wall trim was a simple dry brush technique over an off white base coat.

This fireplace was originally painted off white. Finish was several years old. I basecoated in an off-white. Rarely is white a good base color for a glazed finish--it is just too bright. I did four layers of different hues of red using different effects with each color. I picked out some of the molding in gold and then applied a van dyke glaze to keep from having the gold look too "sharp". I varnished with a gloss given the formal nature of the setting. I also refinished the tiles which were worn. I picked the  wall color to accentuate the color of the mantel. The woodwork is finished in the same glaze color as in the above dining room.