Faux-painting... Anybody done it?

[Smurfette]

The little "how-to" thingys at home depot make it look all easy, but I was curious if anyone had actually done it. Is it easy? any tips?

 

[UTinBigD]

we painted our dining room with like that. It turned out great, but be warned that at least in our case, it was vastly different than the original 'vision'.

We had trouble getting the base color to look right when we started in with the outer layers. Also it sometimes is hard to maintain a consistant color over all of the walls. It might be easier with just two colors, but we were working with 3.

 

[ldogg53]

my sister got very good at faux-finishes... she would buy a couple sheets of that foam board stuff and practice on them... try different combinations of rags/plastic whatever with different colors...

check out the rejects (those paints that people returned) at Home Depot for doing faux finishes.. since you're mixing colors a lot of times you can get away with finding one that will work as either the base or top coat... and then it is super cheap for that gallon of paint, and they'll mix more at full price if you need it..

 

[BurntOrangeOrder]

Smurf: '68 is allowing you to do this? Tsk, Tsk.

 

[Smurfette]

well, the house we're moving into has a wavey-textured fireplace, and it and the walls are painted white. I HATE white walls. So, my thought is to do the "ragging" style faux paint on the fireplace to make it more of a focal point in the room instead of a hole in the wall with logs in it, then paint a two of the other three walls in the room the base color just to add life.

You'd really "tsk" if you knew what color we were going to use

and LHF68 tends to trust my eye for colors... those who have been to our current house know that we're not big fans of subtle colors.

 

[Campus Loop(y)]

Lure somebody in and hack them. That will put stuff on the walls. I don't do that any longer but can show you how.

 

[horn4life]

I did it and it turned out great... at least to other folks. I didn't actually get exactly what i wanted until I did some some work with texture in the dining room.

The consistancy question---- One person's technique differers markedly from another's. which means it's better to have one person do all of the rag work. SUcks for that person but then you have consistancy.

I used a "buckskin" color as the base, and then ragged on a "tea stain" glaze. I think these were the Ralph Lauren paints from Home Depot. i was looking for a sort of Mediterranean look for the walls similar to old plaster.

In the dining room I got it EXACTLY right. But the secret was simply using mud to float the entire wall to get the smoother texture consistant with a plaster wall. then i painted the entire with a brush to add additional highlightes then came back and ragged on the glaze.

BIGGEST HINT - I using a glaze they dry VERY quickly so you can only do a small area at time before it drys, and you DO NOT want to stop once you get going... so do the whole wall at once even though your arm and shoulder may be falling off for consistancy.

 

[lostman]

I have done a few. The one I like the best is the Ralph Lauren denim look in Lostbaby3's room. It took a bit of practice and some work taping off the panels, but it looks good. I even put overlapping seams and orange "stitching". The chambray finish is good looking too.

 

[Smurfette]

I did my faux painting tonight, and I'm liking the way it turned out-- it was a lot easier than I expected. I went to the little faux painting class at Home Depot and it was kinda a waste of time, but worth a shot!