Painted Ceiling Pipe

What do you do with an ugly black pipe running along your ceiling? You paint it of course! I used to hang fascinators from the plastic pipe in the ceiling of my hat-making studio, but because I’m sprucing the whole place up after the flood, and because I really love the Painterly Roses Stamps from Iron Orchid Designs, I decided to make the pipe a focal point.

I started by painting it in Glidden Fancy Flirt, a pretty light green, made into homemade chalk paint (2 tablespoons calcium carbonate powder to every 8 ounces of paint). I stuck to the pipe with only one coat.

Next I used the thorny vine stamp to make the base for my rose vine in Glidden Dill, a slightly darker green.

Glidden Brass Mesh yellow was the base coat for the roses. Because the ceiling is textured sheetrock, the stamps don’t look perfect, but I don’t mind.

The leaves were filled in with Fancy Flirt.

Some of the leaves were overstamped with Dill and some just had veins added with a small paintbrush. Behr Mac N Cheese and Glidden Yellow Coneflower completed the roses and gave them enough depth to stand out when viewed from below.

The vine stamp added extra detail to the pipe itself. I love looking up and seeing a rose vine above my head. It’s both beautiful and unexpected.

The best part is the pipe fitting. Our favorite hotel and restaurant group, McMenamin’s, has lots of whimsical faces painted on pipes in their historical buildings. Marc challenged me to do something similar with my pipe. I can’t draw a face to save my life, so he was probably expecting googly eyes.

Instead I used a decoupage technique and Matte Mod Podge to add this cute little owl face from a paper napkin (the one I used is sold out, but this one has the same owl on it). It’s nestled among the roses, and keeps an eye on me as I work below. So whimsical and fun!