MARBLE FAUX FINISH
Michael Holigan: The couple who moved in this home last year had one final decorating challenge - that was how to showcase the unique architecture in their sitting room. As it was, this exquisite entrance to the sitting room was lost in a sea of white paint. So they gave the archway a marble faux finish accented by burgundy paint on the surrounding walls. What a difference! Although it looks like they spent a lot of time and money to achieve this look, it's actually a very simple and inexpensive technique, and unlike real marble, the decorative glazes we'll use allow you to customize the color scheme any way you want. First, we painted the adjacent walls with latex paint. The decorative glazes we'll use on the archway stay wet a longer time, and that's important because we'll be working with the glazes quite a bit once they're on the wall.
Debbie Davis: Now, what I'm doing is painting burgundy glaze real abstractly on the wall because in a second I'm going to add some blue to it and then we're going to blend them together. It's going to look really neat.
MH: The two colors mingle and take on a purple tone. This is the groundwork for our beautiful marble wall. Now the glazes are blended further.
DD: Just simply dab over the two colors with a sponge. See how you're lifting off some of the paint and the blue is blending into the burgundy glaze? Doesn't that look pretty?
MH: Believe it or not, using plastic bags will give your wall added dimension and depth, just like real marble.
DD: After you lay it top of the glaze rub your hands all over it because you would want to lift off some of the paint and leave a real textured look onto the wall.
MH: One more step makes the faux finish appear more subtle and realistic.
DD: This mixture of milky white glaze was created with decorative glaze and some white accent acrylic paint. Brush it onto your sponge and then look, when you dab it over the dry red and blue glaze it softens it up. Now once that dries it looks a little bit more like rock.
MH: Just as marble has veins, so does our marbleized wall. That's actually the next step, is reproducing that real stone look. Now you may think it's difficult to paint all these little lines and veins, but it's not really that hard and it's actually a lot of fun.
DD: There is no right or wrong way to do it. You just simply create the stress marks by taking a brush that's dipped into a little bit of accent acrylic paint and some water and then just gliding it along your surface.
MH: We're painting dark veins to match our wall's underlying dark color. To make the veins more visible we use a white paint first. Don't be concerned about painting perfectly straight lines either. The more irregular they are, the more realistic they look. Once you finish all of your veining your wall has all of the nuances of marble. You can use colors as subtle as stone or as dramatic as these. Let your imagination run wild.
Episode 62 1997 - 98 Season
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