Swedish Furniture Painting: Furniture & Wall Stencils

Picture Of Elegance featured a number of stunning pictures on their blog of Ted and Lillian Williams chateau in Normandy, France. The chateau was built ca.1765, and reflects a French Swedish Rococo architectural period of style. The highlight of the pictures are the amazing stenciled walls.  One can only imagine what it would look like in person! Trouvais featured some larger pictures of their home orginally featured on World of Interiors in April of 1994. If you carefully study the bedroom you can see the amazing hand painted olive leaf stenciling on the furniture and the walls. In one of the pictures, it is very unclear, but it seems as though the french desk is stenciled. If you are considering stenciling furniture or the walls, finding the right pattern can be most of the battle. In the past I have resorted to cutting my own stencils with a stencil cutter which is very time consuming but extremely rewarding to get the exact design you have in mind. The first dresser I stenciled was a zebra pattern which I cut from the pattern of a bed sheet. All you need is a cutting tool that heats up that has a sharp rolled edge and some clear stenciling sheets. You can get interesting patterns from the books in your local library or order a book that contains age old stencil designs which you can copy from.

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Another way of getting a large design up on the walls or on to furniture is using an overhead projector. It is worth picking one up if you plan on doing a large design on the walls. For myself, I am not too good with free hand drawing, and you almost need to be absolutely great artistically to pull off a worthy design to go on the walls.

An overhead projector is a easy way of transferring a large scale design on the walls. All you need is the time to paint the details. It also doesn't have to be too complicated either. Take a look at the navy and gold dresser I painted up simply by using an overhead projector. The design was large, so it took me no time at all! Here is another french chest I painted using an overhead projector. The possibilites are endless! The best thing about an overhead projector is you can combine a number of different patterns to create a custom look much like Lillians bedroom. The design that is in Ted and Lillian Williams bedroom is an olive leaf design which can be collected from a number of different sources and then applied to the wall using the same paint, and it would all blend in much like something right out of the 17th century!

The book Repeating Patterns 1100 - 1800 is an excellent book for cutting out your own designs and stenciling them on to the wall or furniture. The stencils can be very easy to quite complicated. This book and CD-Rom set contains a stunning collection of repeating patterns from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque.

The book 2,286 Traditional Stencil Designs is a 128 page book containing designs in reproductions of two rare catalogs: ornamental borders, corners and frames with intricate floral and foliated patterns, and architectural ornaments.

800 Classic Ornaments and Designs contains 144 pages of ornaments such as decorated with flowers. This is a treasury of royalty-free art that includes classical columns, a rich selection of heraldic designs, and a variety of charming calligraphic alphabets. A priceless resource for artists and designers.

This must be the same bedroom. As you can see her design isn't too complicated. It matches the china, which must have been her inspiration.

This Quilt Bridal leaf stencil is as close I could find on Amazon of Ted and Lillians bedroom pattern. Depending on the size it could be shifted around and penciled in on the wall to create a design and then painted.

Look how Lillian matched the mirror to the wall. She did a terrific job!! All of your french furniture features the raised details that can be painted to match the colors of your room.

The Artful Stencil on ebay features a number of really large stencils that you can use as a pattern. They carry a fair amount of damask stencils.

Stencil Mania has a lovely Fleur De Lis stencil that features an elongated leaf pattern can be used vertically or horizontally on furniture.

The picture containing the french desk in the center of the room looks to be stenciled as well. The picture is rather dark and small to tell. I had a green painted chair I wanted to stencil except getting around curved edges can be a challenge. One way to get around some of the edges is simply to pencil in the design from the stencil and then hand paint it. Why didn't I think of that before? Chinoiserie styled painting is extremely beautiful.

Designer stencils sells a really pretty cake stencil which you can use for your furniture. It features 5 different stencils for around $70 dollars.

If you look off into the distance in one of the bedrooms you can see a French chair covered in blue and white chinoiserie fabric. Chinoiserie fabric is really hard to find at a reasonable price point, although Ralph Lauren sells a wonderful blue and white chinoiserie porcelain print that would really make any room beautiful.

Williamsburg also sells a blue and white Asian Toile Wallpaper.

In addition York sells a lovely blue and white Bird Toile wallpaper.

York sells a wonderful detailed blue and white pattern called Ashford Toiles Old World Toile. It sure would look amazing on the walls. I can only imagine!!

If you are looking for something simple on the walls consider the Ashford Toiles Geometric Trellis Wallpaper, which gives a very Swedish / French look to the wall.

If you have been a fan of the gold tones, consider Yorks Neoclassical pattern in Yellow. It is really sensational. My entire living room is going to be based around blues with pops of bright yellow. Can you just imagine some bright silk yellow sheets? AH! So beautiful. Upholster some good Louis XV chairs in some bright yellow fabric with this wall paper, and be sure the frame is BRIGHT Gold!

Here are some ideas to creating century old walls........

* York sells a neoclassical print that has a light background for $88 dollars a roll. The detailing is more delicate. This is a spectacular print. Here is the light blue version of this paper. They also have a green print on a white background as well.

* The Chelsea Damask Citrine by Ralph Lauren is a really nice bright print that can be matched up with some coordinating fabric to give an authentic french look in a bedroom. The sister print, Delamere Damask Jade is a light blue.

* Lights Forever sells a large 12 x 12 damask stencil that you can use for your walls. It sells for $14 dollars.

* Faux Like a Pro has a Faux Painting Damask Stencil Kit, which includes 1 gallon of GLAZE, 1 Bristle Block Brush to apply the paint with and the Damask stencil you see in the advertisement.

* Plaid sells a wonderful Stencil Decor Multi-Layer Border Stencils in a damask pattern

*Fabrics and Wallpapers for Historic Buildings is a volume for everyone involved in restoring or researching American houses built between 1700 and 1900. An interesting guide for those who enjoy researching authentic wallpaper designs.

* The Lancaster wallpaper by Ralph Lauren could be a really nice base print for hand painting. Paint over the design using 2 or 3 tones of colors. They also have it in a Navy and Pink. I think adding tones of gold, and two other colors would be extremely rich!

* Consider decorating all in red with the Champagne Toile Prepasted Wallpaper by York. Pair this wallpaper up with some simple white and red check fabric.