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!
