Ceilings

I was reading a blog once and a question was posed "what do you take pictures of? weird things?" I never thought I had a "thing" I took pictures of more often......until I started reviewing. I thought my cieling thing was new to Europe, since there are so many interesting ceilings. I was wrong, then I began to think about when it started and why. 

I do rememberer in high school there was a coffee shop my friends and I went to often it was across from my Dad's office. I remember it had this patterned ceiling that was copper. I was fascinated that someone would pay attention to detail like that. It was beautiful some days I would stop in and just visit the ceiling. I even convinced my Dad to stop in one day to check it out. we were renovating another house and I wanted to convince him that I needed a ceiling like that in my room. My Dad told me it was a tin ceiling that was painted with copper paint..... it lost a little of it's magic but I worked for weeks to convince him I needed a ceiling like that in my room. I went so far as to hunt down an antique parts store that sold sheets of old tin ceiling, I kept telling him we could do it ourselves. ( We did a lot of home projects and between my grandfathers metal and electrical work and my Dad's carpentry we could build a lot, our family renovated more houses than I care to count). I admit the cost of a painted tin ceiling was a bit more than I could convince my dad of at the time..... I am sure at some point in my life I will have an exotic ceiling. I do find I love the details of moldings and appliqués painting and patterns. If it is on a ceiling and it is unusual I will at least look and admire the effort of taking an ordinary thing and turning it into something to notice. Most people ignore the ceilings they are there a necessary thing but, nothing to decorate so I guess I have a thing for ceilings.

Looking up right now is important...today a certain 6 year old deleted all the music off my ipod, 3 years and 476 songs all erased and my backup folder my husband "accidentally" eliminated in his last update. Some of that music was from friends or cd's  now I have to search Sam's library and rebuild it all.........And some of the original music is "lost"

The Louvre was once a palace and of course for the time painted and gilded ceilings were all the rage in decorating.

  So the ceiling here in the Louvre are pretty impressive, they were designed for kings. A bit heavy on the gilding at times but overall just breathtaking.

 Some were unusual and some were gilded I couldn't help but spend most of my time looking up. 

The same certain 6 year old often had to shoo me to our tour group because I was so busy looking up studying the ceilings. Even P & S started looking up then looking at me , like what are you looking at.

 The ceilings were so unique and beautiful. I liked the detail in some, it looked like they had natural elements of stone.

 Others I liked the painting. I have to say some I was amazed at how much gold paint was used. 

I wondered about the artist and how long it took to paint them. Did the kings and queens and courtiers look up often or ignore them and go about their business? 

Oh if the walls could talk would they have good stories? Imagine the ceiling had a bird's eye view of all of the happenings......... 

Some of the ceilings were more modern but equally beautiful. 

I loved the arches ( another thing I am into I guess) 

Especially the lit ones that illuminated whole hallways. Light ,sunlight, surprisingly the Louvre is a dark or dim lit place. Plus it was a foggy day so this touch of light was wonderful.

  I enjoy looking up figuratively and literally I guess. Someday if I can convince sam I know I will have a copper painted tin ceiling and some moldings in the other rooms...

For today however it is good to be looking up again.