At Clever, we are always on high alert for paint tricks. Unexpectedly transformative design solutions that require only a bucket, a brush, and a few hours of you time? They never get old! So when design star Anne Sage Instagrammed a sneak peak of this studio space in Pasadena, California—complete with a envy-inducing patchwork pattern on the acoustic tile ceiling—we perked right up. "It was like this really crummy, run-down office space," she says of the property, which Margaret, the sister of Anne's business partner Caroline, had rented to use as a studio. Foremost on Anne and Caroline's list of concerns was a dated drop ceiling complete with dirty-looking water stains that ran the length of the space. "A lot came together quickly, but I was looking at these tiles like what am I going to do?" Anne recalls. "It didn’t matter what else I was going to do in the space, the ceiling was just going to be such a bummer." Time for a paint trick: During a fitful night's sleep she came up the idea to leave the tiles be and paint right over them.
Sure, they could have ripped them all out instead and painted all the ducts and pipes white, like everyone else seems to do when faced with this scenario. But Margaret didn't own the studio, and the whole project was done on an "as low as humanly possible" budget. "Plus, we had no idea what might be up there," Anne points out. A vision in place, they made a mood board for the project and included a medley of paint swatches to use on the ceiling. Thirteen to be exact: Portola Paint's El Mirage, Ancient Scroll, Angel's Landing, Limelight, Drizzle, One Drop, Mission Rose, Pink Pepper, Charlotte, Canggu, Lighthouse, Troubadour, and Ghost Tree. (Their team was able to acquire the paint at trade prices, but doing this at home wouldn't have to cost a fortune. You'd just get quarts rather than gallons, since ceiling tiles are relatively small.) Then it came time to mock up a pattern, which Anne realized by using a paint-by-numbers diagram to make completing the job as easy as possible. "It’s not a true checkerboard," she says of the patchwork look she settled on. "I had a really clear vision for what the pattern needed to be: spaces between each color, not exact, feels a little random, though there’s thought."
From there, all that was left to do was paint. Margaret didn't trust anyone else to complete the task, so she got on a ladder and painted three coats on every single ceiling square herself. "Some were in rough shape," Anne says, and the 345-square-foot space took a mind-boggling 60 hours to complete. This isn't a DIY for the faint of heart, it seems—but with Anne's paint-by-numbers guide to inspire you, a very sturdy ladder to stand on, and the determination to fix up a ceiling without busting it out entirely (and dealing with what lies above), we know you'll prevail.
