Decorative Painting for the Home: Creating Exciting Effects With Water-Based Paints

Gives tips and techniques for using faux finishes to decorate the home, including crackle finishes, joint compounds, and using different faux wood grains

From slow beginnings a decade or so ago, decorative painting--faux finishes, sponging, and the like--has struck a chord with publishing houses as well as with the public. It's definitely an antidote to new furniture purchases as well as an outlet for career and other frustrations. Because there are almost as many techniques as practicing artisans, Andre and Lipe add a few more terms to amateur painters' vocabularies: crackle finish (imitating paint gone old or dry); joint compound (etching and tinting); and the names of different kinds of faux wood grains, from the exotic zebrawood and wenge to the more common oak and walnut burl. Also, the authors may have distinguished their book from others by the way they present their instructions: "paint chips" of suggested colors are included, as are a few samples of completed finishes. Barbara Jacobs