Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Pillars and Pillars

We had white pillars everywhere in our house so we decided to give these some glam.
Metallic on a pillar?
Metallic paints can be "loud" on their own, but put a little glaze or stain on them and they say "psss....here I am" without screaming "HERE I AM!!" We loved it so much we did our crown molding as well. I absolutely love the look.




You can achieve this same look with many different colors of metallics. hmmmmm.... what can I do with pink metallics? Ciao for now

Red Hot Apothacary chest

OH NO!!!
What are we to do with this hot mess?
I found this on craigslist. I couldn't wait to get her home and play.

BAM!!!





Slapped some red lipstick on this girl and she is ready to go! This piece was so much fun to paint. I layered and layered paint with special embossing applications (see travertine on our website) then distressed it for some character. I parted with her and it "SOLD" within days. These types of pieces sell for thousands of dollars at the black bamboo in downtown kansas city. That's were my inspiration for this piece came from. Theres' of course are hundreds of years old and have original paints and laquers. But with a little paint and technique those laquer looks can be easily duplicated and save yourself a lot of cash. Ancient Chinese Secret ; ) Ciao for now

Friday, December 10, 2010

It Takes Two To Tango

We love to dance Tango. The art form is beautiful. The style of Tango we dance is typical of what you would see in Argentina. There is no choreography with Argentine tango, it is all impromptu and is based on the foundation of lead and follow. This is how we met, and the rest is faux finishing... I mean history....

Now this is LOVE....

Take a look at the follow link which shows one of our most favorite tangos:

Thursday, December 9, 2010

French furniture obsession

We love French Provincial design.
This hutch we picked up was in need of some love and care. The little girl who owed it wrote every phone number she ever received all over the surface.
Currently it at a store in Leawood, KS called Vintage Market waiting for a new owner to take it home with them




This desk was great find. It matches the hutch above. Black and cream are wonderful together. It's a very classic elegant look See more of the before and afters on our website at: www.kcfauxdesign.com

Crackled Oak Kitchen Table

This table belongs to a client that wanted me to crackle the top of the table only. The base of the table has beautiful legs with large claw and ball features.
This pictures shows the crackled table top towards the final stages of the project. There are various types of crackle mediums, as many of you know. All of them can be tricky to apply, however, I like to spray them. This allows the cracks to spread out more evenly. If you brush and rolls, it tends to elongate the crackle, which can be seen on our bog header, (the zebra with crackle and glaze).






You can see other examples of crackled furniture on our website at: www.kcfauxdesign.com

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Room Make Over on a Small Budget

This was a room that my sister and I decorated for our mother.
My mother is a cross between Peg Bundy and Lucille ball.
And she's gorgeouse!! So we surprised her with a beautifull pink and chocolate color room make-over.
It's an apartment, so we were limited on what we could do with flooring, fixtures and paint but we worked around that.
Like the padded headboard?
It's cardboard covered in padding and rich color fabric.
We were on a very limited budget.I think it's a great example of what we can do with a little imagination and guts.
My sister and I had a lot of fun.
This metallic snake skin table was originally white with ugly flowers.
Now it has sass!
And here is a picture of my mom holding in her hands what she
holds so precious......
Shoes......
awww... a girl after my own heart

She loves her new room !! We love you mommy....

Zebra stripe

Look up! See the Zebra stripe on the header of the blog?
This is actually a table we hand painted.
We used a crackle finish then glazed it.
I love Zebra stripes! I love them in every shape and every color.
Ok, Look down.......
This is the sad table, which is too classy to be looking like this!!
So we gave her some sass and some class!


Isn't she a beaut!
These sexy legs are finished with a stone pull off, topped with metallic foils and beautifully glazed with a pearlized finish. The ornamental features you see are italian accents that we added for that extra character.
"SOLD"
It was hard to let her go..... She went to a good home in less than 24 hrs.




 



So were off to our next project

Warm Up Your Mantle

Take a look at this fire place mantle. We cleaned and prepped with denatured alcohol, sanded it, applied two coats of dark gray primer, and then started our next steps.
This is a great look for any living room. Believe it or not we used two coats of pewter metallic as our base coat, then stippled it with dark brown stain and seal to give it a metalized look
Matching columns flank the other side of the room

Tifanny Blue room with Trellis Stencil

BEHOLD! The POWER of PAINT!!! Before     This boring room is getting a makeover               Before                    ...