temps français

Most mornings I wake up at 3 a.m.

My internal clock is on French time.

Really France is more than just six hours ahead of us.

If France was founded in 843,

(I did the math),

She's 933 years (8,173,080 hours),

plus six hours,

ahead of us.

Photo via DayLife

Time has become her friend.

France seems to patiently yield to time

and grants its effects, a connotation of value.

Stones, the heirs of time, bearing the signature of
Water & Wind, 

are given prominence.

Plasters and woodworkers leave their fingerprints

behind in walls

and their works become the aura's of art.

Photo via Lookmom
Plaster and lath is a lost art this side of the Atlantic.

I find it ironic that it took the manufacturers of
gypsum board, drywall, sheetrock,
(or whatever you want to call it),

30 years and three name changes,
to convince people to use it.

It saved on time and money.

So now we use drywall and spend money to
imitate time.

Strange world we live in.

Photo; Peter Vitale

It's difficult to fake time.

Photo via Veranda

But some people do it better than others.

Martin Alan Hirsch who owns

Decorative Finishes Studio

in Louisville happens to be one of the best.

Nobody does washed limestone better!

His Old World European style Villa
is completly faux finshed.

The corinthian columns, Italian plaster archways,

engraved stonework, and faux finished

rusted balcony railings are all faux.

Michelangelo faux renderings have been applied in an eleven layered fresco style to the front of the villa, along with imitations of old, worn wood window frames.

These have to be some of my favorites.

The vintage French posters applied to faux aged walls.

This strie effect is also nice.

If you would like to see more of his work,

or perhaps take a faux finishing class,

click here.

Short of moving our clocks up to French time,

we can get a fabulous faux painter!

Bisou..