What’s Your Niche?

If your home was built in the past 10-15 years, especially on the West Coast, there’s a good chance you have an architectural niche somewhere.

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While niches add architectural interest, many are quite shallow and so you can’t put anything in them like vases, object d’art, etc. Most people will paint inside the niche, as above, with an accent color. But then you just have a huge color spot in the room – not too exciting.
Being an artist, I see niches as the perfect frame for murals. The pieces below measure 10 – 12 ft wide.

The columns are real, btw. I painted the scenes on theatrical muslin in my studio, then applied them to the wall with wallpaper paste.

Do you notice the pewter lights in the lower left corner? Yes, it’s a huge chandelier. These pieces are in a family room open to the 2nd story, so they’re about 18’ above ground floor.
The niches below are about 4’ wide. The room is decorated in muted tones, so I toned down the colors, although the client picked all the flowers she wanted included.

This niche was created with paint. They have a walk-in shower and wanted a place to display the ceramic hanging. I was at their house for a Christmas party and it looks the same as when I painted it 5 years ago.

This is an example of a very shallow niche. I matched the background to their floor tile.

And, another ‘faux’ niche. We started with a yellow (yes, yellow) closet room. Before the wine racks were installed, we applied a color wash on the walls, added faux bricks and grape ivy.

Then I painted the faux niche. The clients picked the type of pitcher they wanted. I wish I had before pictures of how a basic yellow closet was transformed into a gorgeous wine room.

This was also fun because the clients have their own vineyard on the property. He went to the vines and clipped some leaves for me to use for reference. Little did I know there are tons of varieties of grape leaves.
So if you have a niche in your home and have been wondering what to do, consider some art. Or, if you don’t have a niche, you can create one with paint.
Not an artist? I’ll be posting, in the future, some easy tutorials on how to paint bricks and scenery.
Of course, I’m always available to paint commissioned pieces :)!
Colleen