A Tale of Two Plaques...

Lat Summer, in a field in Wisconsin, I met this very talented artist from Florida and I fell in love with his furniture and accessories.

 I did something I normally never do...I commissioned two large wall plaques from him for my dining room. I even found myself saying things like "surprise me"...and for those who know me well...those words don't often leave my mouth when it comes to design.

 I gave him complete artistic license for two important reasons...practicality...the man doesn't own a cell phone, computer, fax machine...anything that would make design consultations a reality... and secondly he wasn't the sort of fellow that would take kindly to my artistic meddling...shall we say a bit of a bohemian and rebel spirit?

Well to make a long story a bit longer...I finally received my plaques a year later. He obviously doesn't work on time lines either....


Here is how they looked when I first put them up in the dining room...

What was "lacking" for me was the limited shell work on the each piece...and the cornice at the top of each plaque was way too extended and large...it is not clear from these pictures but the balance didn't feel right in the room. Below is a close up.....

I stared at them for a week knowing they weren't right and that I had to do something...and then my girlfriend Dawn (who you have heard me mention before) came over and said...why don't you just flip them over and make the top cornice a shelf instead? Brilliant! Sometimes two design heads are better than one...I needed someone not emotionally tied to this project to save the day!

I added more shell work and sand dollars to make them more interesting as well....

My husband and I re-hung them this morning... early before work...so I could move on to other design dilemmas as I am known to do...lol...