PAINTED FURNITURE

Regina Garay launched her firm in New York City in 1998 and has since grown into the Florida-based Garay Artisans, which is one of the most respected faux finishing businesses. Garay Artisans has won the national Grand Prize of 2009 (the Top Job Awards by The American Painting Contractor) for their beautiful work.

Concrete Lamps

My Friend Nancy and I were discussing this designer photo, in - particular the lamps they feature on the sideboard. She is a faux painter herself, and has taught me some excellent tricks of the trade when it comes to producing superior paint finishes. The lamps to me look like rusted metal or a concrete of some sort. I am interested if there are any other faux artists out there that would lend a few wise words how they would approch this paint finish. Please leave some comments at the end of the post.

Here is what I would do with lamps that have a good shape, but are not necessarily concrete:

Any sort of finish needs a good primer.  What good is a paint finish that you spend hours on, only to peel off?

Consider buying concrete which you can mix with water from your local hardware store.

-Trowel it on to your lamps.

-After you have it on, and it is fairly smooth following the lines of the lamp is - lightly create some dents into the filler and then smooth it over again.

In the picture above, it looks to me, like the lamps themselves are pretty smooth, but they do have a textured finish to them. Not like a sandy concrete, but a roughness look to them. So in other words I would make them fairly smooth with a few interesting pits, or small interest points.

-Let it sit over night

In the picture it looks like the bottom coat is like a metal that has rusted.

I would go with TaKahe-TH37 Ralph Lauren for that base coat. I have used this color plenty of times as a rust color, and it works really well.

Let it dry.

Using more plaster, trowel on additional plaster that is tinted with yellow paint to create a rustic effect much like the lamps in the picture.

After it is dry, consider adding glaze with a muted white yellow tone to soften the entire look and highlight the concrete dents.

The top color you could use HaystackVM85 Ralph Lauren, or Cobblestone-UL39...

Any Faux artists willing to share some wise wisdom?