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Homes

Front Porch: Doodling new look for homes

By ELIZABETH BETTENDORF
Published April 15, 2005

Dr. Doodle and his tribe of "Doodle-ettes" may wear teal-colored scrubs to work, but they don't wield stethoscopes.

Instead, you'll find them transforming the looks of houses inside and out.

Call it minor plastic surgery for the home-improvement set: a little Botox for the kitchen cabinets, some dermabrasion for the front hallway.

Dr. Doodle, a.k.a. Ron Hutchinson, 39, paints murals and creates decorative faux finishes that resemble everything from burled wood to silver leaf.

He and his team of six artisans can transform a concrete floor to a shade of melted caramel, whip up Venetian plaster the color of fresh cranberries and glaze a house exterior to look as though it was warmed for centuries under the Tuscan sun.

He's done it for great houses across Hillsborough County and for 16 Maggiano's Little Italy restaurants - including the WestShore Plaza location, to which he added "1920s-style nicotine-stained walls."

He's cozied up cabinets, shutters and bathroom vanities for celebrities, athletes, even regular people who want a Brady Bunch-era garage door to look old world for $1,000.

He designed a ceiling mural of clouds and cherubs for interior decorator Debbie Perez that looks like it was shipped straight from a little church in Venice.

Pane Rustica is a client.

So is Magic Wok International and Airside E at Tampa International Airport.

What's interesting is Hutchinson himself: a squiggly haired, intense artist with a head for business.

And jingly slogans.

His motto?

"Every idea starts with a doodle."

He got his start as a graphic designer for a firm in Belmar, N.J., lost his job "to the Mac (Macintosh) 2cx" he says, and took off for Europe. He roamed Czechoslovakia, Germany, Italy and France, along the way learning old-fashioned, highly skilled painting techniques.

He also painted the bottoms of sailboats in Greece, snorkeled for octopus, ran a bar and met his wife-to-be - a Hungarian au pair.

The couple landed back in the States, hopped an Amtrak from Philadelphia to Tampa in 1999 "with four bags between us" and the idea (culled from the Internet) that they would rent a room on Nebraska Avenue.

"We got to Tampa," Hutchinson remembers, "and were eating at a Subway when someone told us that we were out of our minds thinking we were going to live on Nebraska."

So they stayed at a Holiday Inn for a few weeks until they could afford a down payment on an apartment. Hutchinson landed a job as a waiter and eventually saved enough money to buy a bicycle at a pawn shop.

While waiting tables at Mise en Place and Ceviche, he moonlighted as a muralist and faux painter. A big mural job for a local dentist turned out so well it landed him a story on WTVT-Ch. 13 Fox news.

"I thought the murals would be the really lucrative thing, but more and more phone calls I was getting were from people wanting faux finishing," he recalls. "It was the hot new thing and business started increasing." Completely by word of mouth. Hutchinson never advertised.

He became known to his clients as Dr. Doodle Muralogist after he saw a sign for a urologist and fancied putting an "M" in front of it.

"Lots of people still want murals - and we make them portable so they can go with a client from house to house," he explains. "But faux painting just took off. It might cost you $60,000 to replace all your kitchen cabinets, but just $15,000 if we paint them for you."

Hutchinson now employs six people full time and maintains a large studio adorned with murals of Italy near Tampa's airport. Much of his work is done in the studio rather than at clients' homes. His wife, Ildiko, works as his business manager. They live in South Tampa.

He feels thankful, he says, for the tilt of the universe in his favor.

"I am nothing without the people who work for me. They are so talented," he says. "We read books, take workshops, go to school. We're always learning."

[Last modified April 13, 2005, 16:40:07]