The Design Process

An original design starts with input from you.  Tell me about your dining room, kitchen or living room.  Tell me about your lifestyle; your kids, your dogs, your hobbies. What are the colors you like to decorate your house with most?  Is your house Colonial?  Primitive?  Country?  Rustic?  Armed with this kind of information, photographs, magazine clippings and anything else that you think will help me understand you, I go to work preparing a full-color, to-scale rendering of your floorcloth.  You will receive the drawing (in some cases more than one, depending on the complexity of the project), a quoted price for the piece and an estimate of the completion date.  I encourage my clients to take as much time as is needed to decide what design will work best for them.  I can make adjustments in color and/or design or I can start over with a new concept. Once a design is settled upon, a Commission Agreement is signed and with a deposit of 30% of the completed price, work will begin on your floorcloth. The end product -- a piece of art unique to you and your surroundings; a floorcloth that will enhance your home for years to come. If you supply me with a photo of the room I can show you what the proposed floorcloth would look like before any painting begins.

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Frequently Asked Questions

 

THE DESIGN PROCESS

Are each of your floorcloths custom designs and one of a kind?

I rarely make two floorcloths which are identical. Customers tell me the style they like, colors they need and the size which will work best for their situation, then I go to work designing a piece that will fit perfectly into their home. For the smaller floorcloths, I will repeat a design, especially if it works particularly well as a folk art piece.

What do customers provide?

Customers usually come to me from having seen my work at a show, in someone’s house or from my web site. They know they want one of these tough, washable rugs and they usually know exactly where they want it- under the kitchen table, in the dining room, in front of the couch in the family room or in the front entryway, for example. They are encouraged to send me photos of the room, paint chips, swatches from curtain fabric or wallpaper and magazine clippings to indicate their general taste in color and design.

How large are the floorcloths you make?

I make floorcloths in all shapes and sizes. Each project is made to fit its particular situatuion, so I don't cut the canvas and begin the hemming process until I know exactly what size is going to work best for each customer.Kitchen sink floorcloths are as small as 30" x 72", runners for hallways can go up to 16 feet long and beyond. My heavyweight canvas is 10 feet wide, but with a seam I can expand that size. The floorcloths over 12’ X 16’ are made in our newly expanded workshop, where there’s more floor space.

 

Tell us about your designs.

The designs I have painted on floorcloths range from whimsical frogs wearing hats to historical reproductions of stencil designs and everything in between. Most of my floorcloths use a historical palette of colors and incorporate detailed border designs.

 

What is your most interesting story?

One of my most labor-intensive projects was for a home in Weston, Vermont. I met with the customer and she showed me the space in the master bedroom where she wanted the floorcloth. We figured that an octagon shape would work the best and she told me that she wanted the village of Weston to be portrayed. I took several pictures of scenes around the village green and other notable Weston landmarks. Back in the studio I painted small watercolor sketches of these places and used the computer to arrange them around the border of the octagon. The center image shows the customer’s home behind the green’s bandstand. The border has 8 scenes from around the town. The finished piece is six and a half feet in diameter and looks wonderful in the bedroom of that beautiful colonial home. Unusual themes? Almost every floorcloth is for a specific place. I rarely make a floorcloth that seems "usual".

 

 

For more interesting FAQ's, see About Canvasworks and the FAQ/Care Pages.

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