September 13, 2010
The Boys and Girls Club of Hollywood recently received an art room makeover by HGTV Design Star winner, Antonio Ballatore. The Club was a deserving candidate for the Antonio Treatment as it is known to be positive place for the local youth to come and receive tutoring, mentoring, computer training, sports and social recreation, and arts & crafts. Antonio's mission in the art room makeover was to create a space that fosters a child's creativity and artistic expression while addressing the Club's issues of storage and functionality for the art room space.
Antonio and his team started the room by adding a pixelated tile floor that gradated from gray to purple across the entire space. A custom art bar was installed around the room that created tons of workspace under a bank of windows that flooded in natural light. The windows were further enhanced by a custom 3D valance constructed of tackboards that were cutout and airburshed to resemble a horizon of fluffy white clouds. Antonio's trademark pink ducks, which he introduced while competing for the Design Star title, were a big part of the room's inspiration. The students were each given a cutout of his duck shapes to decorate as they wished and were later mounted across the cloud valance.
The old room had stationary activity tables and and lacked storage and organization. Antonio's team brought in mobile workstations that had built-in storage for paintbrushes, canvases and other art supplies. He updated their old brown Virco 9000 Series stack chairs with new Metaphor Series stack chairs, an updated school chair line also by Virco. Adjustable stools lined the room to allow all ages to work within the space. Flat file storage, tool carts and custom cabinets were added around the art room, as well as a new industrial style sink for post clean up.
The final touch was a simple white wall that was transformed into a gallery space by framing existing student artwork. The wall had once been home to a Starry Night mural, that was preserved in memory by a photograph of the entire Antonio Treatment team in front of the old mural. The final reveal was a frenzy of creative students eager to begin work in their updated space and one very grateful program director.