Decorative Arts & Design, a Connecticut based decorative plaster and faux finish company, was tasked with developing and installing eight special wall fishiness for the royal palace of The crown prince Faisal bin Salman bin Abdulaziz in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia​



These were some of the most dazzling and complex wall finishes I have ever laid eyes on. Dec Arts & Design owner  Mile Đurić worked personally with world renowned interior designer Tony Ingrao to develop them. I was contracted by Mile to assist in the development and installation of these finishes.

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As a team of five we worked around the clock in Miles Stanford CT studio perfecting the installation process and organizing the massive amounts of materials and gear that needed to be shipped overseas ahead of us. 



The sheer size of the project was staggering.  Given the complexity of our finishes it really seemed like it would take months to accomplish instead of weeks. If it wasn't for the 75 years of combined experience of Miles five member team, it could have been a disaster. With unpredictable consequences. 

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The team consisted Mile Đurić, Joe Dinis, Peter Anich, Marlene Raedisch and myself. From the moment we arrived the palace staff took care of everything. A driver picked us up at the airport and took us to our hotel near the palace. Every morning a driver would pick us up take us into the palace where they would service breakfast lunch and dinner served on silver platters by the wait staff. Everything was first class all the way.



On occasion we would have organized field trips into the city  or to a historic landmark such as the Masmak Citadel. There was usually always some kind of handler from the palace with us. I would often go into town with the palaces chief engineer to hunt down some tool or material we needed.

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The entire team was extremely committed and we gladly worked a minimum of 12 hours a day practically every day for the full 8 plus weeks we were there.

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DESIGN

 

Taking any photos of a royal palace inside or out is unlawful and I have chosen not to include any photos of the finishes.



It was an eye-opening experience developing these finishes. They were by far the most complex I have ever seen. They consisted of textural plaster applications sanded and layered in specific ways. Layers of metallic and translucent glazes and layers of mica infused waxes. Surfaces were scratched, tumbled, or grinded with dremmel tools in geometric patterns. Washed with oil base stain that soaks in ever so slightly. Flat, pristine plaster surfaces with cake decoration type applications with miles of hand drawn "cake" lines and hundreds of thousands of hand placed dots. Huge walls that had to be scratched consistently over the entire surface, using dozens of laborers and sanded and filled with wax and gold pearlescent glazes.