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Faux painting is a fun-to-do activity, and with a little preparation, this can be undertaken as a DIY project. Faux painting, if done by the professional contractors, can add vitality and excitement to the interiors or the exteriors of your house, but if this project is undertaken as a DIY activity, to be completed with the help of the family members; faux painting turns out to become a family activity, akin to outing.
This shared activity will add fun and strengthen the familial bond. In the following lines, I am going to provide some tips that will help you, in getting not only the fun out of this shared family activity but will also help you in getting a great faux finish. So, are you ready to undertake, your first DIY faux painting exercise?
DIY Tips1. Always begin a DIY project with preparing a list of things that you will need in order to successfully complete the project. This will save you from the 12th hour panic, due to the unavailability of critical items.
2. Arrange all the necessary things and keep all of them at an easily accessible place.
3. This DIY faux painting project begins with preparing the surface for faux painting. Masking tapes will be required to keep the surface neat and tidy. If you are applying faux finish on the wall or on the ceiling, than use rough cloth to cover the floor. This cloth will prevent the spilt paints from making marks on the floor. Plastic should be avoided. Cloths are more adsorptive than plastics; hence cloths will be less messy than plastic coverings.
4. Take a sample board and faux paint it, using the faux technique you are planning to apply, when creating the faux finished wall.
5. If satisfied, move to next step or else repeat the process over and over again, till the time you get the desirable result. It’s better to use the sample board to create the sample of the finish we want to apply on our wall. Sample board can also be used to mix and match the shades. Think of this sample board as a rough paper, on which we did all our rough calculations before solving the actual math questions in our math’s exam.
6. Take a base paint; using water-based latex paint is advisable to get a good faux finish. Eggshell and satin colors can be used to topcoat the surface.
7. Apply the basecoat, thoroughly, on the surface. No patches or corners should be left uncoated because, the basecoat will be visible through glaze and any patch on the surface, due to improper application of basecoat will ruin the effect of faux painting.
8. Leave the basecoat overnight to dry.
9. Line your tray with plastic sheets. This will save your time and energy, else wasted in washing trays, when mixing the glazes for the DIY project.
10. A correct proportion of paint and glaze should be maintained, when mixing glazes. The standard practice is to use 3:1 ratio of paint to glaze.
11. Mix the glaze in small quantities. This will minimize the wastage, if the resultant mixture didn’t meet your satisfaction level. You can even try this mixture on a sample board, to see if you are getting the desired effect or not.
We undertake a DIY project, because we want to have fun during the process of creation as well, only the end result is not important here. This is an important point, keep this in mind.
Have fun, enjoy the company of your family, and create whatever faux finish you want to create, using whichever technique you wish to. In faux painting, there is no right or wrong way of doing things. There are just beautiful results.
NOTEFrom tomorrow, I am going to provide professional DIY (Do It Yourself) guides on the topics of creating various faux finishes. Those DIY guides will be written in simple, easy-to-read English.
For more information, visit Welovepainting.com