Wall treatments

Hi all,

I know, I know--its been a loooong time. My apologies. That's what happens when you get divorced and start working full-time! Gack! But here's a new post dealing with wall treatments.

Like many folks, I have painted walls and even dabbled a bit in some so-called "faux" finishes. It can be lots of fun. Be not afraid! Get a good reference book--I particularly liked Sunset's guide Decorative Paint & Faux Finishes--read up and go to it! Don't be afraid to try new techniques. And don't be afraid to paint right over them if they don't work. (For that reason, I stay away from textured treatments; much harder to cover up a mistake.)

Here's my first wall treatment. We painted our living room a deep gold color and had a lot of gold accents in the room. So I though a metallic gold would be appropriate on the walls too. The crown molding got painted with a flat yellow latex and then was streaked with a metallic gold paint and a simple stencil was applied as a border directly underneath all around the room. I thought it turned out handsomely.

 Here is the wall at a higher magnification. I loved the look of the gold stencil paint so much that I did an all over gold stencil in the dining room next door. You can just make it out through the doorway. It took me quite a while to go around and do the whole room but it was worth it (and covered up the flaws in the drywall, to boot.)

In this dining room wall, I did a fairly complex faux finish and then completed the look with star stencils. I started with a layer of orange paint (pumpkin orange!) and then mixed a deep red paint half and half with some glaze. I then dry-brushed the thin red paint over the orange. It took three layers to get the effect I wanted. Then I applied hundreds of star stencils in gold, dense at the top and falling down and thinning out at the bottom. 

For all of the stenciling I used Delta Stencil creme oil paint Delta Stencil Magic Paint Creme Folk Colors Traditional--it was very easy to work with and gave great results. Love, love, love, the metallic gold especially.