Sponge Painting Used to Be So '90s-but Designer Ellen Van Dusen Just Modernized It

"In their new shared weekend retreat, they rolled up their sleeves and brought the outdoors in, incorporating rocks from the property into kitchen cabinet hardware and recreating natural motifs with the finishes. "We went very literal with the design of a 'house in the woods.' It's almost a caricature of what a city person's view of the country is," Van Dusen says. Cheeky faux finishes played a big part in realizing that vision, as did cheerful color washing."

"The concept of what the family refers to as the "leaf room" is self-evident, but the execution had to be flawless, shares Van Dusen: "My husband is really, really into trees, like, almost to a fault, so the shapes had to be accurate-or else," she says, laughing. Friends, and scalpels, were enlisted to cut out maple, oak, and other specimens from sponges. From there, they started tackling the walls, floor, door, trim, a built-in, and even the heating register, using Kelly green paint."

"Van Dusen originally thought this project would be wrapped in a day. "In reality, it was many, many days with many, many people because there were so many layers," she recalls. The pattern was applied randomly, which turned out to be incredibly time-consuming. "Three quarters of the way through, I was totally overwhelmed with how much time I'd already sunk into it, and I"

Three siblings converted a former postwar artist's cabin in Sullivan County into a shared weekend retreat that brings the outdoors in. They incorporated property rocks into kitchen cabinet hardware and recreated natural motifs with finishes and cheerful color washing. A 'leaf room' features sponge-cut maple and oak shapes applied across walls, floors, doors, trim, a built-in, and a heating register in Kelly green against a Popcorn Kernel Benjamin Moore background. Friends helped cut shapes with scalpels. The layered, randomly applied pattern required many days and participants and proved far more time-consuming than initially expected.

Read at Architectural Digest