05
Faux Finishing and Murals
Decorative work for the rooms that carry a house: foyers, stairwells, ceilings and feature walls. Sampled in the room before it is committed to.
Chapter 01
Where decorative work goes wrong
Almost always at the sample stage, or rather at the absence of one. A finish is chosen from a small card held up in a showroom, and then scaled onto a two-storey foyer wall where it is seen from a landing, from below, and from across the room, in light that changes completely between morning and evening. A texture that read as subtle on a six inch card can read as busy across four hundred square feet, and a metallic that looked warm indoors can go green under the blue cast South Florida light throws in the middle of the day.
Scale is the other trap. The interval of a pattern, the size of a trowel stroke, the weight of a glaze: all of it has to be judged against the actual wall and the actual viewing distance. A mural drawn at desk scale and enlarged tends to lose its drawing.
None of this is fixable cheaply after the fact, because a decorative finish usually has to come off or be buried under several coats before the wall can start again.
A soaring octagonal foyer with a wood-beamed ceiling, wrought-iron chandelier and crisp white millwork, finished by Creative Images Painting
How the work is actually built
A sample board first, made with the same materials and the same hand that will do the wall, then put in the room and left there. Looked at in the morning, looked at again with the lamps on. It is a slow start and it removes almost all of the risk.
Then the wall is built in passes. A base coat that is flat and sound, because every decorative layer above it will show anything underneath it. Then glaze, or plaster, or the drawing, applied in stages and judged in place at the height it will actually be seen from rather than from the top of a ladder eighteen inches away. Corners, returns and the join where a day's work meets the next day's are planned before starting, since those are where a decorative finish gives itself away.
Faux finishing and murals is one of the ten named services this company carries out, alongside the wood staining and wood finishes and the wallpaper work that often ends up in the same rooms.
Chapter 03
Keeping it, and changing it later
Decorative surfaces are not wipe-down surfaces. A glazed or plastered wall has its depth in thin translucent layers, and an abrasive cleaner cuts straight through them, leaving a dull patch that cannot be spot repaired without redoing the panel. Dusting, and a barely damp cloth where something has been touched, is the whole maintenance routine.
If taste changes later, going back to a flat wall is a real piece of work rather than a coat of paint, and it is worth knowing that at the start. Depending on what is on there it can mean sanding, a bonding primer, and more than one build coat before a plain colour will sit flat and even. We would rather tell you that before the sample board than afterwards.
We are based in Boca Raton and work across Palm Beach and Broward counties. To talk through a room, call (954) 857-3213.
Creative Images Painting, Boca Raton. Licensed and insured. Florida license # U-17482. Call (954) 857-3213.