Wylie House
Wylie House Museum
Bringing History Home
Wylie House Museum is under the direction of Indiana University Libraries
Photo Index

Finished stencils

Bloomington artists John Thom and Jeff Thom, owners of Florentine Finishes, visited Wylie House Museum for the first time in June 2001. They fell in love with the house and offered to donate their time and talent to help us create a more authentic interior design. It was agreed to start with the parlor. They conducted research to determine what wall treatments were typical of the 1830s in the Midwest, and learned that either wallpaper or paint (stenciled or not) would be appropriate. We agreed that the Wylies, coming from the East, might well have chosen stenciling and decided to use that technique in the room. Working from a photograph of another period house in which stenciling had been discovered under many layers of wallpaper and from a book that documents historic stencils, John designed a beautiful all-over stenciling pattern that gives the effect of wallpaper.The Old Fashioned Milk Paint Company donated the marigold yellow paint that was used as the base coat. Three colors were used for the stenciling, as was typical of the time period. The images presented here document the two-week project from start to finish, and will give you some indication of the transformation. We hope you will visit soon and see for yourself what a wonderful difference this project has made in the house. We would like to express our most sincere gratitude to these talented artists for their generous donation to Wylie House. We look forward to working with them again on further projects.
Last Update: Aug 12, 2001
URL:http://www.indiana.edu/~libwylie/images/stencil/intro.html
Comments: libwylie @ indiana.edu
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