RAGGING OFF

Michael Holigan: Achieving a subtle pattern look like this is easy with a wall painting technique called ragging off.

You'll need to do a little mixing of your paint with some glaze to get started. We used clear plastic cups to make it easy to measure as we mixed one part paint to four parts glaze. If you haven't worked with glazes before, don't let them scare you off. They're readily available anywhere you buy paint and because glazes dry more slowly than regular paint, you have more time to work with them before they dry. We chose latex paint and glaze just because they would be easy to work with and easy to clean up later.

Before you actually begin painting, you'll also need to put down a little plastic and tape off any trim or other areas where you don't want paint to go. It's a good idea to build a shelf with the masking tape instead of trying to go all the way around the trim. That way you won't pull off as much paint off the trim itself and you're going to protect more of the carpet itself. We're just ragging off one accent wall in a formal living room, so we have about 100 square feet to cover. For that amount of surface, we need approximately one quart of paint and a gallon of glaze. Since the ragging off process involves two separate phases, it's a good idea to round up a friend to help you out with the project.

I'm just rolling the paint on the wall as you normally would, and then my wife Debbie is following along behind me with the actual ragging off technique. Debbie is using a plastic food wrap to achieve an effect we like, but just as the name says, you can use almost any sort of rag you might have around the house. Or even paper towels. It's a good idea to experiment on a board or a wall you're going to paint over later before you begin. That way you can see what kind of ragging print you like best. Whatever kind of rag you use, you want to paint the wall first, as we're doing here, and then pull the paint off with the rag in a relatively even, consistent style across the wall. We found we liked letting the plastic wrap stay crinkled up on the wall instead of flattening and smoothing it out. Using the same piece of wrap two or three times also seemed to help give us the faux finish we were looking for.

Like sponge painting, you really can't mess up with this technique, and if you don't like what you come out with on your first attempt, just paint the wall back to it's original color and start over again. It does take a little more patience than sponge painting. You'll need to spend a little more time stepping back and taking a look at your work so that your pattern looks relatively uniform across the wall. But it's still a great, easy project you can do with a partner on a weekend afternoon.

Keep in mind that the paint will dry a little darker than it looks when you're applying it, so the contrast between the original wall color and the color you're ragging off will be more dramatic when it dries. If you want a more subtle look, let the wall dry for at least a day and a half, roll the wall again with a light coat of the same paint and then rub it gently with a cloth rag to revel the ragging off pattern again. It's almost like adding a polish coat to the wall. You can also use as many as three or four different colors, but be sure to let each color dry completely before you do the next one. That may sound like a lot more work, but actually it's a great technique for beginners, since it tends to cover up any mistakes you make along the way.

If you'd like to try your hand at ragging off, you can get started with very little investment. The only items we needed for this wall were the one gallon of glaze and a quart of paint, a paint roller and pan, a paintbrush for the corners, masking tape and a drop cloth, and of course, the plastic wrap we used instead of actual rags. Remember to always pull your tape while the paint's still wet. That way it won't stick and pull loose later. If you want to keep the paint off your hands, you'll also want to wear plastic gloves. The number of different looks you can achieve ragging off is practically endless.

So take a weekend afternoon and add a dramatic new look to any room of your new house.

Episode 43 1996 - 97 Season

| Ragging Off | Stud Marker | Xeriscaping | Final Walk-through | Pro-Measure Plus | Excess Humidity | Detectors | Paint Protectors | Second Mortgages |

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