FAUX WALL TREATMENTS

Michael Holigan: Ethnic influences are coming on strong in interior design. Just look at the colors in this Neiman Marcus catalogue. If you love the look, but don't want to spend thousands to achieve it, you'll love what we're going to do to this bare white wall. Easy do-it-yourself faux finishes in bold colors fit for a Moroccan palace give this room instant drama. We'll show you how. We begin by painting the outer wall with an acrylic paint the color of curry. We originally planned for this wall to have a linen look, but the existing texture forced us to go to "Plan B". After rolling on the paint we ragged some of it off, which gives us an Old World look. We use a sponge brush to cut the paint in where the wall meets the ceiling and along the sides. Next, Heather mixes a deep forest green. This will be the base coat for the interior arch. Later, Heather will sponge paint diamonds in even darker shade of green on top of this. Heather adds white glaze to the mixture to help make the paint go further, which saves money. Just about the time it looks like we're painting a tribute to the Green Bay Packers we rag a bold paprika color onto the other interior arch.

Heather Mason: And Michael, make sure that you don't want it to look like a hiney.

MH: Don't look like a hiney. Okay. Good rule to live by.

HM: It needs to be like a rose.

MH: We used our rag to randomly blot paint onto the wall, then we come back and rub over it.

HM: We really only have about 15 to 20 minutes to work with it, so that's why we're doing small sections, so that we can get darks and lights while it's still workable.

MH: This textured wall does cause some problems, doesn't it?

HM: It does. We really want to press the rag in to get down into those deep grooves and then we can pull the glaze off of the top. Now Michael, on these edges we didn't tape them this time because we didn't want to pull our paint off, so we're just using a inexpensive piece of poster board to run along the edges we rag up against it.

MH: The large center space is painted with our curry gold to provide a base for our faux leather finish. Good, so how do we do the leather finish now that we've got our wall painted?

HM: Okay, you're going to do a stipple technique and you're going to use either a stippling block or a bristle brush.

MH: Stiffling?

HM: Stippling.

MH: Okay.

HM: All right. You're going to use your paint. What you do is you dip it into the paint. You're going to blot it off real good.

MH: Quite a bit of it?

HM: Ah-huh.

MH: Okay.

HM: You need to go to the wall and you're going to work this so it gets sort of leathery textured. Then you need to come to the wall and you gently go over that and you pull off some of that...just real sharp lines.

MH: Crumpled craft paper pulls off excess paint and adds an interesting texture.

HM: Now Michael, this is a very fast process, so do like you're doing and work in small areas.

MH: Okay.

HM: I try to work more in lines so you can see sort of a grain through the leather.

MH: Creating a natural grain and plenty of blending are key to a great looking faux leather finish. And now, for our final step.

HM: We're getting ready to do our green accent wall and we're going to add diamond shapes to the pattern and I'm using compressed sponge to draw our shape out on that we're using and I'm measuring off two and a half inches for this diamond shape. Now, you do need to make sure that you allow growth space for your shape, because when you wet it, it will expand both upward and outward. So make sure that you've got that extra bit. We're just going to use regular scissors to cut our sponge and then you just simply put it in the water and it expands. Get as much water out as possible and then you'll need to blot out with a paper towel the excess. We're ready now to put our diamonds on the wall. We're doing a tone on tone color with a pre-cut sponge diamond pattern. And we need to come over just a little bit here to make it come out even. You need to just make sure that you press all around the corners, but not too firmly because if you press too firmly you'll get little bits of paint out on the outside of your sponges. And you can go several times. You see I've done four already with not dipping back into the paint. We've gotten to the edge of the wall here, so we need to bring in a half diamond and I've been practicing with mine. It's pretty green already. And we're going to sponge that there and then we're going to bring a full one here. Don't forget to blot. We're going to come down the whole edge of this wall. Now, we've gotten to the bottom and we're going to have to use a half-sponge, but instead of cutting this one because a sponge is so flexible we'll just go in there and get a good press right there at the crease of the wall and we've got our masking tape, so we'll just pull that off and you'll have a fine looking half of a path. Now I'm going to start back with a whole diamond and I'm also going to do another half of a diamond the opposite way and we'll have a border running down the edge. And we're just going to do those together.

MH: Here's our finished wall. Bold earthy colors and creative textures create an exotic focal point for this design savvy dining room.

Purchase Video

Episode 61 1997 - 98 Season

| Faux Wall Treatment | Healthy House | Installing Hardwood | House Inspection |