Midnight Fireplace
An ordinary fireplace turned into the room's actual feature, deep indigo pigment and layered plaster giving a surface that feels carved, not just coated on.
LOCATION : Private residence
FINISH : Pigmented Venetian plaster
SUBSTRATE : Fibreglass mesh-reinforced base coat
COLOUR : Deep Indigo
DURATION : 7 working days
OVERVIEW
A standard brick surround turned into the room's focal point, one deep-pigment plaster finish, built up by hand until it had that cloudy depth of tone.
THE CHALLENGE
Fireplaces move; that's just the nature of them. So before any colour went anywhere near it, I embedded fibreglass mesh into the base coat across the whole surround to protect against the heat and the hairline cracking chimney breasts are prone to. Only once that base was solid did the pigmented plaster go on, layer by layer.
THE OUTCOME
A fireplace that looks different by lamplight than it does in daylight, and one that can actually handle the heat it sits next to, not just look good beside it.
