If you have any experience in terms of buying a new home or in building one for yourself, you have realized one thing: raw materials are expensive! There is a reason why materials such as marble, hardwood, rare woods such as mahogany and even finer paints drive up the prices of homes exorbitantly: hey are very hard to get a hold of, and very pricey as well.
Expensive and rare materials are nothing new, when it comes to adding value to a home. The marble pillars you hear of in Rome were no less expensive then than now; it was the rich people that furnished their homes with this type of decoration. Some people even make the argument that back when people lived in caves, a false finish added to the home in the form of art would increase its value!
In essence, that is what a faux finish is: an addition to a home which makes it appear more desirable either through its emulation of a certain type of in demand material, or which adds a sense of originality.
In particular, faux finish refers to a type of paint applied to a structure, either inside or out, which gives the appearance of a certain material. There are several different types of paint, each representing a material.
They include:
Marble, which can be either plaster or glaze.
Graining, which impersonates rare and exotic expensive wood types.
Venetian plaster, which looks textured but is in fact quite smooth.
In addition to the different types of materials involved, different techniques are also applied in order to create certain faux finishes. The brush technique will determine how the paint is applied and the appearance it creates within a certain room or on a certain exterior. By combining the type of material with a specific technique, it is possible to create a faux finish that is entirely unique to one's own home.
Besides giving a value added appearance, faux finishes can be incredibly fun to experiment with as well as to apply. Homeowners everywhere will be satisfied when they use this ancient technique to improve upon the appearance of their homes!
You will need the stencil, paint, and a tool brush or sponge to apply the paint. You can buy stencils complete with instructions and registration marks, or make your own. As with other decorative techniques, the simplest schemes are usually the most successful.
Once dry, faux finish stenciling images can be lightly sandpapered to soften or age them. Quality supplies and proper care of stencils is key. If you find a painting, drawing, or photo with great stencil potential, it's not difficult to use that image to generate a stencil.
Apply the stencil as a ceiling, wainscot or baseboard border, or as an all-over pattern, like wallpaper. If the stencil becomes too build-up with paint, or if you want to save it for another day, scrub it clean with detergent and dry on paper towel.
Test out your patterns either by cutting the stencil from colored paper or by drawing it onto a sheet of paper and holding the results up against the surface to be decorated. The wall to be painted should be clean. Apply a base coat of paint.
Hold the stencil in position with masking tape, load your brush or sponge with only a very small amount of paint, starting at the edges of the design and working inwards, hold the stencil in place for a few moments afterward to let it dry. Clean the stencil and reapply the paint as necessary.
Both Rob Parker & Roger King are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Rob Parker has sinced written about articles on various topics from Real Estate, Network Marketing and Real Estate. There are many different terms you might hear in a class, including burnish (to polish using a hard tool) and distressing (glazing).. Rob Parker's top article generates over 301000 views. to your Favourites.
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