HomeHome & DesignInterior Design › Decorative Art ‘Finishes’ Your Home
 
 
 

What’s the best finish to a great home?

Custom finishes — on the walls and ceilings, on vanities, even mirrors and furnishings.

image001_copy_copy_copy_copy_copy_copy_copy_copy_copy_copy_copy_copy_copy.jpg

Custom hand-crafted finishes for each unique client    Photo Credit: Dawn Monte

These aren’t out of reach: They’re available and affordable for all budgets, whether you’re building new or renovating. These designs are made to your taste and can enhance the beauty of the home because you have the eye and skill of an artist to give you custom-tailored work.

Anna and Scott Sadler are exemplary artists and two of the area’s best through their company, Scottsdale’s Surface Refinements.

For years, they have hand-applied finishes to all surfaces, walls, ceilings, “the fifth wall” and, most recently, one-of-a kind antiqued and patterned mirrors, which can then be installed in niches or framed and hung as focal-point art pieces. They can also apply many of their decorative finishes directly onto large size canvases, and consider that “moveable art.” The extraordinary husband-and-wife team even customizes tabletops for consoles and coffee and dining tables.

image001_1.jpg

Custom-antiqued mirror with Asian design  Photo Credit:  Robert Boulay-The Finer Line   Interior Designer: Hudson Five Design

Here are two people who work from passion and vision. “I want to feel these three words every morning before we start our day: energized, inspired, optimistic,” says Anna, a native Canadian, as is Scott. “I want to greet the day enthusiastic and creative, and, going to sleep, I want to feel accomplished and proud.”

“These are the foundation on how we run our business; they are key factors and what drive us to excel and exceed our expectations, and our clients’,” she adds.

The Sadlers discuss each project with us, the contractor, the designer, if one has been retained, the architect and the owners. Then, they sit down with the clients to discuss the many options for enhancing and showcasing their space, and offer suggestions based on lifestyle, furnishings and expectation.

image002

Intricate custom gold leaf ceiling   Photo Credit:Robert Boulay-The Finer Line

As a builder, we, in turn, ensure that the interior wall and ceiling space is correctly configured and finished for their artwork. Have the walls, for instance, been hand-troweled to their specifications?

To obtain their complex depths of pattern and color, they use many brushes, trowels and other products such as pigmented metallic plasters, shellacs, glass beads, a spectrum of foils and leafing, Swarovski crystals and glitter, and intricate patterns and designs via laser-cut adhesive vinyls and stencils. Each project requires extensive preparation, and each pattern and finish is designed for that, then not used again.

This is, then, specialty work, not “faux finish.” “We prefer to be referred to as decorative artists, and every blank space or wall is considered a canvas for us to create something special and memorable,” Scott says. “What we don’t do is cookie cutter and run of the mill.”

image003

Aged Plaster finish with custom scroll design     Photo Credit:Robert Boulay-The Finer Line   Interior Designer: Hudson Five Design

 

Every project Surface Refinements does is a partnership that encompasses the Sadlers’ shared business and personal lives.

Anna has traveled extensively since her artistically inspired youth in Montreal. Her two extraordinary parents were professional ballerinas and lived all over the world. Her Hungarian roots surely gave her the passion for travel. “I like to joke that I was born with a paintbrush in one hand and an airplane ticket in the other,” she says.

Her career began with a solid 20-plus years in the arts — in Montreal, Naples, Florida — and she owned two art galleries in Monaco. The couple met in Canada, where Scott was a police officer in Toronto and a personal trainer in Montreal.

This gypsy passion for travel is essential to their ability to create in many styles, from authentic Old World to the most up-to-date Contemporary styles. Every place they have been has influenced them and is a part of their work.

 

image004

Custom hand-crafted antiqued mirror with Moroccan design    Photo Credit:  Robert Boulay-The Finer Line   Interior Designer:  Hudson Five Design Photo credit:  Robert Boulay - The Finer Line

She spent extensive time in South America, lived five years in the south of France, took a summer-long watercolor and illustration class in St. Paul de Vence, France, with Ringo Starr and his wife Barbara Bach and spent another summer in Tuscany studying fresco painting. The former Beatle and his actress wife were clients, as was Prince Albert of Monaco and several Formula 1 race car drivers.

“Travel keeps your eyes wide open, taking in every bit of beauty found in the architecture, art, vistas and people,” she says. “The work we create today is a direct result of how that has been ingrained in our hearts and minds.”

Here in the desert, Anna is newly inspired by the seasons, the blooms, the sunsets, the buildings, the cultures and the history.

image001 2

Golden hand-applied glass bead finish     Photo Credit: Christopher Alexander - Alexander Studios

 

But the company’s inspiration comes from many areas, sometimes even the most unrelated objects: “beautiful jewelry, couture collections of gowns and shoes, luscious fabrics, the colors in nature, a gorgeous bouquet, the vividness of the undersea world, birds, even something as simple as a pattern seen on a paper napkin, the colors of spices, the intensity of stones found in nature,” she says.

The result, for your home: shimmer, sparkle, shine — and “Wow!”

Edited_SR_.jpg

Left to right: Tom Monte, Anna Sadler, Scott Sadler  Photo Credit:  Dawn Monte

 

This is the third of an ongoing series on your home and was assisted by David M. Brown (azwriter.com). Questions? Send them to Tom Monte, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Offering four decades of experience in building and renovation, Arizona Structures serves the East Valley, Arcadia, Scottsdale and Paradise Valley and has recently won a 2014 Best of Gilbert Awards for General Contractor. Contact Surface Refinements at 480.313.3191, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and on Facebook at Surface Refinements.