A Love Affair with Paint

Introducing our new paint collection -- The Maison Rêve 38 Colours by Farrow & Ball.

Paint is an easy way to refresh any room or worn furniture piece. Farrow & Ball paint is renowned for the ultimate in depth of colour and elegant finish.

Based in London, Farrow & Ball is the only manufacturer which makes all of the paint and wallpaper sold under its name. Their environmentally friendly paint is made with traditional methods using original formulations. They've never wavered from using only the finest raw materials rather than incorporating plastic “filler” like most others in the industry, resulting in 30% more pigment. We also like that they choose not to use less accurate in-store tinting machines, but instead make and check every batch themselves.

While we carry the entire Farrow & Ball palette of 132 colors in 13 finishes, we know its tough picking paint. So we’ve done the work for you. Select from our 38 favorites in The Maison Rêve Colours by Farrow & Ball. Sold in-store and soon online at http://www.maisonreve.com/. Come fall in love with paint!

Behind the Scenes - Creating a Birch Tree

My team loves creating inspiring store windows for our customers. April was about celebrating Earth Day with an 11 foot birch tree. The white simplicity of these trees is very Maison Rêve.

To create a tree trunk, our inspiration started with a trip to the San Francisco Flower Market.

We found two urns with bended tree branches.

And a cluster of birch branches.

All tall enough, just not right. Keep hunting.

Then some larger birch branch logs. They could work if nailed together to make the trunk.

Until we discovered these hollow birch wraps. They come from fallen birch trees that rot in the middle, leaving these discarded exterior shells. A perfect way to recycle natural beauty! Stacking the right sizes inside another made our 11 foot trunk. The hunt was over.

Back at the Maison Rêve workshop it was time to start painting leaves in our new 38 Maison Rêve Colours by Farrow & Ball. We found pictures of birch leaves online that became our visual cutting guide.

Lauren hand-painted each leaf.

380 leaves - a lot of painting!

We then suspended the trunk with fishing line from the ceiling and made a grid of line above it to suspend the leaves. Voila!

Customers have really enjoyed the tree. We are now selling it with part proceeds going to support the environment. If interested email info@maisonreve.com. Great in a child's room as their "giving" tree.

The birch wraps are now a new product at the store. They are great for covering glass vases that hold flowers on a table. Or to wrap a pail of umbrellas, $38 each.

Stay tuned for our behind-the-scenes May window honoring Mother's Day with vintage treasures.