Faux skylights
Carol Kramer reports.
| More 'Front Burner' articles in this issue |
| Fire burn and cauldron bubble |
| Potato power |
| Baring their recipes |
| Sad good-bye |
Fairfield, Iowa—The people who shop at Seascape Foods, a specialty food shop in Aptos, California, that sells wine and organic produce, are always in a good mood, says co-owner Dan Hunt. That's because, for the past four years, there's truly been nothing but Blue Skies smiling on them. With apologies to Irving Berlin, Hunt ordered up those blue skies from The Sky Factory, a company here that installs SkyCeilings anywhere you want them.
A majority of their clients so far have been medical facilities—better to gaze up at clouds, hawthorne blossoms, and lofty tree branches than machinery when you're having your teeth drilled or getting a worrisome MRI. But the company is also reaching out to restaurants and other businesses that might benefit from making customers psychologically more comfortable.
How does it work? Well, high-resolution photographs (you can choose from hundreds of images) are used to make image tiles that are installed into your ceiling grid with aluminum frames (the company calls them "elevators"). The elevators raise the tiles above the flat bottom of the ceiling grid, creating a three-dimensional effect.
"It looks so real that a lot of people think we have a skylight," says Seascape's Jacqueline Bazzano, "but we're on the ground floor. Once people figure it out, they ask where we got them. It really has helped business." The SkyCeiling at Seascape Foods cost about $8,000, plus installation.
Want to buy your own little piece of sky? Check out www.theskyfactory.com. Then, start humming:
"Never saw the sun shining so bright, Never saw things going so right."
