Faux is a four letter word
Or the Summer of Painting Recklessly or maybe How I Ruined My Summer Vacation, except I'm not on vacation - just a gorgeous weekend.
That's my way of saying mostly off topic posting today. Oh wait, I turned the heel of my snake sock yesterday. Happy dance!! But then, when I was picking up stitches, I didn't put the right amount of stitches on needle one so when I started the decrease I knitted the wrong stitches together and didn't discover my operator error until after 10 rows or so. So I ripped it back to the start of the decrease, recovered from my error and progressed to working on the foot. A learning experience.
Moving on to today's topic. MFB and I decided it was time to faux our living room. We have always joked about how faux is a verb as we watch numerous home improvement shows and have dreamed about painting our white walled living room. I wanted it to look like it had (edited July 10 DOH!)sued suede or leather on the walls. The technique is called Frottage. The idea is to paint a light color base and let it dry. Then crumple drop sheets, mix a darker color with a glaze, roll the glaze mixture 
over the paint in sections the same size as the sheets, smooth the sheets over the paint, and when you remove the sheets, the voids and textures left over should look like suede. Except ours just looked like $&!!. The picture doesn't show the true extent of our handiwork, but pleased we were not!!
What's that you say? Did we try this technique on a piece of plywood or cardboard? Do I make a gauge when knitting? Now why would I or we do that? Yeah I know, operator error.
In an effort to recover, we tried spraying water on the wall and tried the ragging on and ragging off techniques in a small area. Didn't like that either. Then we tried our own version of colorwashing. What we did on another wall was put the glaze on the wall with kind of a dry brush technique in an X pattern. Now this we like.
We did it around the room and for the most part are very pleased. The picture isn't terrific but you get the idea. The light color is called Bagel and the dark color is Peanut Butter. TASTY. In fact in the middle of this excursion we had peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. In a couple of weekends we have to do the same Faux (Pardon me! Where is that bar of soap to wash my mouth out with?) treatment to the STAIRWELL!! I never said we do things the easy way, just our way.
Just an hour ago, we were sitting out on the deck with a "refreshing beverage". I with my knitting (yeah I know surprise eh?) and MFB with his laptop, taking a break and congratulating ourselves on our home improvement recovery when a thunderstorm started. We scooped up our possesions and darted inside.
Then we had Snow in July. Yep that's hail.
That's my way of saying mostly off topic posting today. Oh wait, I turned the heel of my snake sock yesterday. Happy dance!! But then, when I was picking up stitches, I didn't put the right amount of stitches on needle one so when I started the decrease I knitted the wrong stitches together and didn't discover my operator error until after 10 rows or so. So I ripped it back to the start of the decrease, recovered from my error and progressed to working on the foot. A learning experience.
Moving on to today's topic. MFB and I decided it was time to faux our living room. We have always joked about how faux is a verb as we watch numerous home improvement shows and have dreamed about painting our white walled living room. I wanted it to look like it had (edited July 10 DOH!)
over the paint in sections the same size as the sheets, smooth the sheets over the paint, and when you remove the sheets, the voids and textures left over should look like suede. Except ours just looked like $&!!. The picture doesn't show the true extent of our handiwork, but pleased we were not!!What's that you say? Did we try this technique on a piece of plywood or cardboard? Do I make a gauge when knitting? Now why would I or we do that? Yeah I know, operator error.
In an effort to recover, we tried spraying water on the wall and tried the ragging on and ragging off techniques in a small area. Didn't like that either. Then we tried our own version of colorwashing. What we did on another wall was put the glaze on the wall with kind of a dry brush technique in an X pattern. Now this we like.
We did it around the room and for the most part are very pleased. The picture isn't terrific but you get the idea. The light color is called Bagel and the dark color is Peanut Butter. TASTY. In fact in the middle of this excursion we had peanut butter sandwiches for lunch. In a couple of weekends we have to do the same Faux (Pardon me! Where is that bar of soap to wash my mouth out with?) treatment to the STAIRWELL!! I never said we do things the easy way, just our way.Just an hour ago, we were sitting out on the deck with a "refreshing beverage". I with my knitting (yeah I know surprise eh?) and MFB with his laptop, taking a break and congratulating ourselves on our home improvement recovery when a thunderstorm started. We scooped up our possesions and darted inside.
Then we had Snow in July. Yep that's hail.
posted by barbp | 6:57 PM
3 Comments:
Oh gawd, I hear you! All these home improvement shows and certain magazines make these painting techniques look so easy, claiming everyone can do it in no time - but mind you, we also had our tries to do something like that, and my, how we failed! In fact, our tries were the ultimate nightmare :)
I do like the the outcome of your living room walls very much though, it actually looks very mediterranean to me, a color and style you'll find all over the southern parts of Europe - and oh, I love that, it never fails to remind me of summer, sun, vacation... you get the idea! So, in the end you didn't fail at all with your painting, in the contrary, you guys did a fantastic job!
I love the faux painting. I did some in my kitchen a few years back and I had the same problems. Yours turned out beautiful!
It looks really pretty! I love the color choices. Home improvement tasks can be more than bargained for. My Mom always says two sure-fire ways to get a divorce are hanging wallpaper and curtains.
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