Faux Painting

I'm just so faux sometimes. I like everything to look old, but of course everything in my house is sort of new, so I just faux paint stuff. Like these light fixtures from Home Depot. They were shiny black and so new. By the way, those spider webs are not poor housekeeping, they are Halloween decorations. Anyway, I just sponged on some dark grey, medium grey and blueish grey, and there you go, instant age.


And our address sign was all clean and new before I got to it. Now is has lichen and dirt and looks just perfect. Actually I think some of that is dirt and green stuff that falls off the oak trees.


I faux paint furniture too. This is our chalkboard in the kitchen. Hubby made the frame out of some bland wood and I made it look like ancient pine. First I scratched it with an ice pick and poked some worm holes in it. Then I wiped on different shades of brown, gold, and yellow. Finally I used some Ralph Lauren antiquing glaze, and put a coat of wax over it. I really does look old, doesn't it?

This is a wall in our Library. The photo doesn't do it justice. I actually looks like leather. First we painted the walls a deep red. Then we used the antiquing glaze again and working in small sections, applied Saran wrap to the wet glaze. After patting it into the paint, we peeled it off and it left this gorgeous mottled pattern. I just love the irregularity and depth of this technique.

I also faux painted this little castle/fort in our backyard. The girls played in it a lot when they were younger, but now High School is taking them in different directions.

And when we first bought this house, the kitchen had horrid wallpaper, so I just painted it all off white, drew 9"x 18" stone blocks, and sponged on some grey, beige, tan, and white, painted the cracks with dark grey, and we suddenly had stone walls. It's a little dark in this photo, and the kitchen has since been all redone, but I really enjoyed it for a few years.

So here's my theory: If life hands you tatty wallpaper, faux paint it!