By Now You Know I Love A Paint Project
Have you tried faux painting? It's a great little technique to have in your painting "bag of tricks". There are several different styles of faux painting such as wood look, denim, leather, faux marble, and stone. But the one I find the easiest and have used the most is "stone" - particularly granite.
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| Faux Wood Painting Google Image from onebowlparenting.com |
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| Leather Look Paint Technique Google Image from favecrafts.com |
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| Faux Marble Countertop Project from one of my favorite blogs remodelaholic.com |
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| Faux Granite Paint Google Image by todayshomeowner.com |
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The cabinet was actually a re-purposed TV cart. I like to re-purpose furniture. It's a very cheap way to redecorate and change the look of your house. The cabinet was starting to look a little worse for wear because it had some damage to the laminate wood top. My first attempt to "spruce it up" was to mask off and spray the top with some left over Rust-oleum primer, then a coat of Rust-oleum "American Accents" stone paint I had left from a flower pot project. It hid the damage pretty well but just wasn't the look I wanted.
And once again I forgot to take before pictures. Well I didn't really forget completely, I got working on the first step, remembered to take pictures, then got worried that it totally wasn't going to turn out, and didn't do it. Yeah, I know bad Hope...
A-hah, I looked back through some old pics and found one where you can just see a little of it in this pic I took when our recliner we ordered came wrong (but that's another story). So here you go...before...
and after...
Here is a close up of the paint job, I was going for a dark black and brown granite mix.
It was a rainy day yesterday, so I have not yet put on it's poly sealer top coat. This really brings it out to look like stone. But had a few minutes after school today ( 1 day down - yay! ) so I decided to post now.
Here is a look at my tools. This is why I say it's a cheap and easy fix. All the paints I used are $2 samples from Lowes and Home Depot. And my applicator for this particular project was a kitchen scrubby sponge. Yes, I have those expensive natural sea sponges made just for this, and they do a great job, but I couldn't lay my hands on one last night when I got a bee in my bonnet to do this, so kitchen scrubby it was. And my palette was an impressive foam plate. LOL
The key to the faux granite look is sponging on many layers of paint. I started with the brown spray paint stone base which was slightly textured, then I covered it almost completely with black. They I started layering on dark brown, reddish brown, golden tan, cream, then a little more dark brown and black over the top til I got it like I wanted it. Just dab your slightly damp sponge in the paint, dab off the excess on the plate, and pounce it where you want it on your surface to paint. Use a dry end of the sponge to take paint back off here and there. Sometimes dab your sponge into more than one color at once. You really can't mess it up.
When you make long "runs" of a certain color you do want them to go in the same general direction as some granite has a grain and "drifts".
I worked diagonally from top right to bottom left on this project. Then I changed out the bright copper knobs to antiqued copper pulls. Not bad! All it needs now is the top sealed and shined (but not too shiny - some people do a high gloss finish on their faux stone - I prefer satin or semi gloss).
So there's my last project of my summer vacation. From now on I'll be a weekend warrior. Have you done any faux painting projects? If so I'd love to see them. Please post in the comments section. The sun is shining today and it's a pretty evening so I think I hear my deck calling my name....
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