Creating Gustavian Style
They say when you first walk into a house you know whether you want to buy it or not – this was the case for me, with each home I have ever bought in fact, the walls whispered … I am yours .. buy me.
The first thing I saw when I walked through the front door of our new french house was the grand staircase and I fell in love. If you are anything like me, which I am sure you are, my imagination ran riot – I saw christmas – wreaths of pine running over the banisters, tea light candles encased in silver flickering on the steps.
The steps were wooden and they were beautiful as they were, but in my mind I painted them white in Gustavian style- and so once we had our offer excepted and we eventually sold our own home – (it took another year as our first buyer fell through) and we were in, I started painting!
I dry brushed the steps so you could still see the grooves and character of the old wood like a wonderful swedish antique finish. Dry brushing is relatively easy, you just need to lightly place the top of a good quality brush on top of the paint, (you don’t want bristles falling out) and apply with fairly hard strokes following the groves of the wood, beware your brush will never look the same afterwards, but its worth it. If you want to see this in more detail you can soon see it on my You Tube channel – ‘At Home with Madeleine Lee’ – dry brushing.
I then decided to go for a little more detail once I had finished painting, and glued wooden carvings on the back of the steps – here is the result.
And soon its time the deck the wreaths with holly – roll on christmas.
