Upholstered beds are my preference. Since bedrooms are all about the bed it makes sense that a statement bed means a fabulous bedroom.
This is one of my favorites. I would change the chandelier and add the headboard I will be showing in in my next blog, Inspiration Headboard and How To Get The Look. I can’t wait to do the research for the ornament. It probably will not adapt to an upholstered headboard but it is fabulous. So until next week.
There are so many beautiful variations for adding symmetry and style to your walls with panels to create a look that works for your decor. Here are some great inspirations from very simple to formal.
Basic Panels
The board and batten look. Fresh, clean, versatile and practical.
Beaux-Artes offers this beautiful Spanish Empire ornament for $45 which can be added to this basic board and batten design.
Spanish Empire used for a kitchen island.
Just Wall Paneling
We refer to this look as carpenter boxes. This was done with picture molding.
This lovely paneled room is the amazing work of Tina from The Enchanted Home Blog. She also has a store filled with her fabulous finds reflecting her impeccable taste which she offers at great prices.
Design by Andrew Skurman
Since including white marble and stone in our predictions for 2013 I began collecting images of both. Without going out looking for examples this is what has come my way so far.
White Marble
Stone
Vatican Hill is a hill located across the Tiber river from the traditional seven hills of Rome.
It is the location of St. Peter’s Basilica. The masterpiece designed principally by Donato Bramante, Michelangelo, Carlo Maderno and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. St Peter’s is the most renowned work of Renaissance architecture and remains one of the largest churches in the world. Because of its location in the Vatican, the Pope presides at a number of services throughout the year, drawing audiences of 15,000 to over 80,000 people, either within the Vatican Basilica, or in St Peter’s Square.
Treasures of St. Peter’s
Michelangelo’s Pieta
Bronze of St. Peter attributed to Arnolfo di Cambio
The April issue of Architectural Digest in Collecting talks about a new subset of collectors who are looking for “something that other people in their crowd don’t have or know about” and have discovered a new passion: the artistry of antique and vintage paneling, from 18th-century boiserie painted with exquisite trompe l’oeil to Art Deco leather sheathing to space-age expanses of gleaming lacquer. Paris antiques dealer Benjamin Steinitz says “If furniture gives a room purpose, paneling wakes it up.”
Hooray walls as art are In Style. See my Classical Trends for 2013 Walls Are In. I am thrilled to hear this not just because I LOVE paneled rooms, but I have been saying wall panels are a great investment for today. I am also encouraging everyone to consider creating great walls, ceilings, doors and windows. Just think we are creating todays’ rooms and walls as art. When there is no ‘stuff’ in the room it is still amazing to be in. A room with presence.
“An entire room can still be relatively inexpensive,” says Alistair Clarke of Sotheby’s, where a finely crafted George II pine library went for just $20,000 in 2011. I am thinking about all the new masterpieces that we can create with the amazing decorative artists, products and finishes we have access to today. A Beaux Artes’ Louis XIV paneled foyer with 6 panels each with hand painted canvas panels will cost $3,800 prior to installation.
According to Clarke “But prices rise considerably if the paneling is exceptional.” Two years ago at Christie’s in Paris, for example, one bidder spent a little over $3 million on a 1930s smoking room (cladding for a 13-by-20 foot space) that Jean Dunand, the Era’s high priest of lacquer, wrought as an abstract grove of palm trees shimmering with metallic leaf. Below is Jean Dunand lacquered walls covered in a goldfish pond scene for a breakfast room in 1929.
At the age of fourteen, Jean Dunand began studying sculpture at the Geneva School of Industrial Arts, where he won several prizes. After five years study, he was awarded his diploma. 1905, was elected to the Societe Nationale des Beaux Arts after completing an interior for the Comtess de Bearn. Dunand along with Angst, Fraysee and Collet worked under the direction of Jean Dampt. Few years later, he began working with Seizo Sugawara, a Japanese laquerist who had recently emigrated to France, to learn the seemingly lost technique of lacquer.
This gorgeous screen is at the Metropolitan Museum. The Fortissmo screen materials; lacquered wood, gold leaf, mother-of-pearl and eggshell.
Parchment paneling by Jean-Michel Frank, created in the 1930s for perfume magnate Jean-Pierre Guerlain.
From the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries, Versailles-style paneling, or boiserie, was de rigueur among international aesthetes, thanks in part to such tastemakers as Belle Epoque decorator Georges Hoentschel. I am definitely buying Salvaging the Past: Georges Hoentschel
The drawback with vintage paneling are the room proportions. There is a history of paneling salvaged from English castles or Continental estates being cut down or augmented for new spaces. Consider the mid-18th-century boiserie in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Varengeville Room; originally from a Paris mansion, it was filled out in the 1960s with custom-carved elements from Jansen’s atelier.
“AD100 designer Tony Ingrao is taking the same tack with 18th century French panels he is installing in a Long Island dining room, fitting them into new stiles and rails made in the Louis XVI style. While the world’s leading specialists in historic paneling, Galerie Steinitz and Feau & Cie, both in Paris, can replicate the most delicately chiseled acanthus leaf or painted arabesque.”
The main difficulty with vintage panels is having them fit in your space and the advice is find the vintage panels and then build a room for them. For those of us that love the look, the easiest and most affordable way to achieve the look of vintage panels is to create them new and finish them to appear aged. The Annie Sloan chalk paint is perfect for this look. I do understand the desire to own vintage paneling but I’m just saying if you want that look it is possible for most design budgets.
Not sure I agree with this list, but here it is with pictures for your enjoyment.
Catherine Palace
At the top of my list as well.
Exquisite floor, ceiling, walls and doors.
The amazing Amber Room. In a class all by itself.
Love this wall of individual panels for the artwork.
Sleeper-McCann House
I disagree with this choice. Not in my top 10.
Castle Howard
Powerscourt
Marble Palace Mansion
Because this is a private residence no photography is permitted.
Inspiration From The Hermitage
This room in The Hermitage is our inspiration for the foyer we are designing. Panels of gold leaf and the ornamentation in porcelain. Anyone know the name for this room. My pictures were from a friend. It was actually quite a coincidence that my client had a trip planned to Russia prior to seeing this inspiration room. She took a lot of closeups of the ornamentation to assist us in our design process.
The foyer adjoins this outrageous living room or salon as my client has named the space. The coffered ceiling and crown molding was in the room and Beaux-Artes designed the wall panels, pilasters, capitals and empire frieze. We installed all the ornamentation and executed the finishes. The powerful presence of this room was a major factor in our design decisions for the foyer. It is a lot of ornamentation and gold which we wanted to soothe with an elegant and complementary ornamentation design and color palette.
Before Pictures
The foyer is small, unlike the grand space of The Hermitage. Part of the inspiration is to use molding to frame all the walls. This increases the amount of space for our panels and will make the lack of symmetry less apparent.
Right Salon Wall Facing Front Door
Left Library Wall Facing Front Door
Stair Bulkhead over Entrance to Middle Foyer
Note the existing molding and the space between the salon entrance and the stairway bulkhead.
The second floor wall space and dome.
Actually our first inspiration came from this fabulous porcelain from Historic Houses of Paris, one of my absolute favorite books. We would use gold leaf for the walls and the ornamentation would be a porcelain finish. Perfect! Just like the look and feel of the grand room in The Hermitage. Reverses the color palette of the Salon.
1. Wall panels add value.
At Christie’s The Opulent Eye–500 Years: Decorative Arts Europe Auction, this spectacular Louis XV period room comprised of six sets of double doors, four mirror surrounds, two architraves and 16 wall panels were estimated at $240,000-$410,000, the ensemble brought $666,000.
For those with a big budget Feau Et Cie specializes in antique wood paneling as well as the reproduction of paneling. They have several thousand documents which enables them to recreate the most beautiful decors, antique or new. They have over 120 complete room panelings dating from the 17th and 18th century and from the French 1930′s and 1940′s by artists such as Eugene Printz, Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann, and Emilio Terry. They work with decorators, architects, museums and private collectors.
The design of this door reminds me of the door in my last blog of a white marble bathroom from Architectural Digest.
Installing new wall panels can be very affordable and will increase the value of your home just as adding any architectural features will. They transcend style, creating a timeless backdrop for any style furnishings.
2. Wall Panels give the walls symmetry.
Wall Panels organize whatever you choose to hang on your walls. Manola Blahnik chose to disregard the panels and I still love it.
3. Panels are all you need.
No art, pictures, wall hangings, etc. This very simple paneled wall is so elegant with the molding in gold. You don’t need anything else on that wall. It is such a great design for hallways, uncluttered and elegant.
It is fun to look at homes from the past and today. They reveal so much about the people who live in them and the times in which they lived. My list of trends to watch for in 2013 combine classicism with technology, the imagination and the creativity of today’s artists, designers, artisans and craftsmen.
Stone Is In
Donatella Versace’s new boutique in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood was created in collaboration with London architect Jamie Fobert, who combines clean, contemporary lines with old-world artisanal touches. The mosaic-tile floor was inspired by Roman basilicas. 
“It’s a celebration of the house’s love for both ancient and modern,” Versace says of the space. Laser cutting technology enables the creation of complex flooring options today.
Love this fabulous design from Country Floors.
Artistic Tile has a beautiful selection of stone.
Predict you will be seeing a lot of white marble.
Artistic Tile installation.
With the increased desire for environmentally friendly alternatives, stone and the look of stone surfaces is a winner.
Lighting using natural crystals and shells. Corbett Lighting was recognized with one of the industry’s most prestigious honors, the 23rd annual ARTS Award – again. Nominations are made once a year in advance by an independent panel of judges and awards are determined by votes from independent retailers, manufacturers and designers, sales representatives and other industry professionals. Here is one of my favorites. The Dolcetti with mixed shells and crystals.
Details
Classical design embraces details. Details such as perfectly placed and selected ornamentation. When adding ornamentation, less can be more if the scale, proportion, placement and style of the embellishment is appropriate to the architecture.
Old details can provide lots of character and it’s easy with today’s faux finishing products to create aged details and walls.
A great lighting detail is adding our Beaux-Artes recessed chandelier to your recessed lighting.
Walls Are In
Where the decoration is the wall.
Love the Beaux-Artes wall panels to achieve classical symmetry. The panels are sold as a kit which includes the ornamental corners and 16′ of molding. They come in 27 finishes, are easy to install. $199 for a kit. Use them alone or with wallcovering, a faux finish or canvas. Beaux-Artes’ Georgian wall panel with Georgian Canvas Panel.
I took this design from a historical wall panel. It looks great just in shades of grey. Which brings me to my next trend grisaille. An elegant addition to a monochromatic color scheme. And is great with accent colors.
Grisaille Walls and Accessories
Zuber Wallpaper
Suzanne Rheinstein grisaille from her book At Home.
Stone Angels Wallpaper
Tara Shaw grisaille chair
Upholstered Beds
Loving this wingback headboard. This is Bethany Frankel’s bedroom as shown in February/March Traditional Home.
The Company Store headboard. A beautiful backdrop of wall panels for the wingback headboard.
Last month Architectural Digest showcased the latest resort Selman Marrakech, a sprawling Moorish-style hotel minutes from medina. Developers Saida and Abdeslam Bennani Smires and decorator Jacques Garcia the creative force on the project. The exteriors are pure redbrick grandeur.
Love Moorish designs with all the intricate patterns.
There are 56 guest rooms and five riads. The interiors are Second Empire elegance with Napoleon III-inspired chairs, ebony-stained plasterwork, and antique carpets.
The ebony stained plasterwork is amazing.
I so enjoyed researching the other resorts mentioned in the Architectural Digest article. I know you will enjoy seeing them and want to add a trip to any one of them to your bucket list.
The Royal Mansour – Magnificent!
