June 01, 2006

Dress Home Accents with Shimmer and Texture

Faux finishing, so popular for adding color and dimension to walls, is also ideal for bringing personality, creativity and fun to smaller items. With faux finishes, the do-it-yourselfer can transform furniture pieces, vases, decorative shelves or flea market finds into striking home accents bearing today’s hottest looks.

The popular patinas found on trendy new consumer items include crackle finishes, textured stone finishes, and especially low-luster metallics in gold, silver, copper and pearl. These looks can be created quickly and easily on almost any surface using today’s faux products, so home décor accents can be made to either complement or coordinate with new fixtures, cabinets and wall surfaces.

Humans have shown a love for sparkle from ancient times, but experts say there are reasons for the current popularity of metallic faux finishes. “People are seeking to infuse their surroundings with a sense of hopefulness, so we are seeing a brightening and cleansing of the color palette,” says Mark Ksiezyk, senior product manager, Krylon Retail Products. “Also, advances in chemistry are letting us create more beautiful shimmer finishes than ever before.”

Ksiezyk says other innovations, such as smaller packaging, are making metallic and other faux looks more practical for smaller projects. Until recently, faux users had to lug heavy gallons of faux components home from the store, mixing in a hit-or-miss fashion until they achieved the desired result. This often resulted in wasted time, paint and money. But now, faux finishes are available in quart and half-pint sizes.

Also new are pre-measured components that eliminate guesswork about results. For example, Krylon’s Color Creations™ allow you to look at an in-store color card then select a half-pint of the paint color indicated on the card and a quart of the faux finish needed. Even better, the quart can is short-filled for in-can mixing, so you don’t have to hunt for a container in which to mix. Instead, you pour the ½ pint directly into the quart can and stir the two together.

These brush-on faux finishes require no special application tools, so there’s no need to learn complicated application techniques to achieve beautiful shimmer, pearl, crackle, glaze or sand-style finishes. But by experimenting with combing, sponging, and brush-through techniques, you can achieve novel effects on unfinished wood projects, holiday gift items, or for almost any type of home décor makeover.
For project ideas, visit www.krylon.com.