Painted Details

Dena Fishbein is a talented artist who's put her delicate stamp on nearly everything in her home. The beauty begins with the entry where she's stained pine boards with a blue hue and used to them to frame the door. A wrought-iron piece adds architectural detail above. She's also enhanced the exterior walls with birdcages hung at varying heights.

Inside, the walls, floors and furnishings contain Fishbein's artistic touch. The cabinets flanking the fireplace have been handpainted with a delicate harlequin pattern surrounded by stylized flowers for a Scandinavian-style effect. The sofas are plump with pillows that she's covered with a combination of vintage fabrics, embroidery and trim. Many of the lampshades are embellished, papered and painted — she's even used earring wire and beads to create a fanciful fringe.

The large kitchen is open to the living room, so she continued with the pastel palette and painted designs. Blue striping is found on each cabinet door. The most interesting aspect of the kitchen is the mosaic tile "rug" that's been inset into the wood floor. Fishbein created the pattern and color palette and commissioned a tile artist to complete the piece of art.

The master bedroom is a soothing retreat with a tone-on-tone neutral palette. Fishbein even added her special artistic touch to the organza fabric framing the four-poster bed. After washing and ironing the fabric, she used acrylic paint mixed with a fabric additive to create a stylized floral design. The dresser was a fortunate find in a San Francisco flea market; the scale of the piece perfectly suited the wall of windows and the large-scale architectural piece hanging above.

Her daughter's bedroom is alive with a red and white palette. The balloon shades were brought over from a previous home; since they didn't fit the windows perfectly, Fishbein improvised by hanging red and white checked curtains in between to fill the spaces. Red and white bows attached to the balloon shades coordinate the design. The two iron beds were in bad shade when she found them, so she had a car refinisher strip off the rust and repaint them. She's created a fairy-tale effect with fabric draped down from the ceiling. Another bedroom is decorated in a pale robin's egg blue and soft yellow color palette. Although the ceiling looks like it's been painted, it's actually wallpaper — it adds interest up high while coordinating the color scheme.