General Finishes - Best Faux-Luxe

Driftwood Coffee Table

Bethany Youssef — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 04:53:24 +0000

This is an old wooden trunk repurposed into a rustic coffee table featuring my signature Driftwood Look. The trunk now sits on four metallic silver caster wheels which add to the charm of this new industrial style piece.

Products Used

Gel Top Coat in Satin Finish by General Finishes
My Signature Driftwood Look
Caster Wheels from Lowes
Crisp Linen by Valspar
New handle by Hobby Lobby

Project Category

Best Faux-Luxe

Driftwood Dream Dresser

Bethany Youssef — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 04:44:51 +0000

This piece I call my Driftwood Dream Dresser. This dresser is from 1928! Yes 1928! There's a furniture sticker on the back of the mirror dating this piece and it's location to Portsmouth, NH. If you have ever flipped through a Restoration Hardware magazine or looked at their furniture online this in the look I was trying to create on the this piece.

Products Used

Crisp Linen by Valspar
Gel Topcoat in Satin Finish by General Finishes
Clear Wax by Anne Solan
My Signature Driftwood Look

Project Category

Best Faux-Luxe

Textured Stone

Chelsea Terry Evans — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 04:33:09 +0000

This piece needed some texture so I mixed in some corse sea salt and plaster of Paris into my base coat (black & bone) and went to town!

I applied the chunky paint with a chip brush by dabbing it in various places and dragging my brush to add lines where I wanted them.

After it completely dried, I fine sanded the entire piece so the texture wasn’t sharp. I then painted it in layers of Wise Owl Inkwell, bone, and sea salt.

I glazed ghd the entire piece in van dyke brown to mute & merry the colors together. This gave the base an overall look that resembled the texture and tones of stone.

The top was stripped down and stained with minwax classic grey and shaded with van dyke brown around the edges.

The entire base is sealed with Wise Owl matte varnish and the top with lemon verbena salve to enhance the look and give lasting durability.

Products Used

Wise owl black
Wise owl Bone
Wise owl Inkwell
Wise owl Sea salt
Valspar gel glaze tinted in van dyke brown
Minwax classic grey stain
Wise Owl matte varnish
Wise owl lemon verbena salve

Project Category

Best Faux-Luxe

Color Recipe

2parts Wise Owl Black, 1 part Bone
2 tbsp Sea Salt
3 tbsp plaster of Paris
Tbsp water

Show Me Your Doors

tFFg — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 03:30:10 +0000

Resurrecting family heirlooms for clients has got to be one of the greatest honors I have in my little Furniture business.

150 years of life lived. At least 40 of those years were spent in and old wash house, my client’s grandmother’s wash house to be exact. The next 10 years were spent in a shed. The elements did a number on this piece of history. I was called in to see if there was any hope... my client wished to move the piece into her guest bedroom to serve as a wardrobe of sorts.

And so the journey began...

Rotten wood, broken hinges, bent and buried nails, sheer filth and rusted through tin doors were a few of the challenges facing me.

Once I made numerous repairs, trying hard not to alter the piece too much from its original state, a decision had to be made about the tin door insets. Should we replace with new? The damage was deep. My client asked me to try and save them. After gently removing any loose rust, the process began to give a faux weathered tin look. Layers of shades of gray paints and spots of metallics here and there, blending, highlighting and stippling away the years of rust were a success. We didn’t want the look of brand new tin, but we also didn’t want her guests to feel like they needed a tetanus shot after using the piece! Lol

The body of the piece was given a glaze coat of Driftwood milk paint followed with two coats of hand painted Linen Milk Paint by General Finishes. Purposeful distressing allowed to original character to peek through the new finish.

The interior was refreshed with a custom toner mix of GF Medium Brown Waterbased Stain and GF HPTC in Satin.

This was more than a custom job, I was bringing a piece of my client’s childhood and her grandmother back to her... it was a privilege to be trusted with this restoration.

Products Used

General Finishes Linen Milk Paint
Custom Driftwood Glaze
GF Medium Brown Water Based Stain
Miss Lillian’s Metallic Black Pearl
Miss Lillian’s Metallic Silver
Sherwin Williams Black Fox
GF Driftwood Milk Paint
GF HPTC Satin

Project Category

Best Faux-Luxe

Aged to Perfection

Carrie Frantz — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 03:16:08 +0000

A standard 9 drawer garage sale site dresser went extreme. This all wood quality piece was the perfect start to my favorite style...industrial. The legs were custom fabricated and I built out the base to accommodate. I custom built and added a new top and the body was given a custom "faux galvanized" finish to mimic aged metal. The hardware pulls it all together.

Products Used

GF milk paint Queenstown Gray
GF flat finish topcoat
Rustoleum Weathered Steel
Paste wax/stain mix

Project Category

Best Faux-Luxe

Drifty

Hueandmoxie — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 02:50:14 +0000

Drifty is finished in multiple dry brushes layers of grays, greige, white and cream to give her an aged drift wood feel.

Products Used

Diy, Valspar, Wise Owl, Luxe
Wise Owl Glaze
General Finishes HPTC

Project Category

Best Faux-Luxe

Faux Mercury Glass End Tables

A. Surless Redesigns — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 02:36:06 +0000

So anyone ever instantly regret buying a piece to flip but youv'e traveled too far to go home empty handed? That's right... This girl, with this set!

We drove almost an hour away to pick up this living room set for a client that was redecorating their living room. It seemed as though the pictures posted were from when they first bought the set... Couldn't be too bad. It was after dark when we had picked it up so the next day was fun when I got a closer look at the pieces! The glass was slighting cloudy and scratched and the frame bent and coming apart at the seams.

So I took a deep breath (thtough my mask, of course) and started sanding the metal frame with a sandpaper to give the paint something to grip to. Although it took many hours, I started seeing some hope for the set. I then reinforced all of the seams with JB Weld.

While the JB Weld was setting, I thoroughly cleaned the glass. And tested out the Rustomleum Mirror Effect Spray Paint on an piece of glass from an old picture frame.

I found that spraying the glass with a spray bottle of vinegar prior to applying the Mirror Effect and wiping excess was the best way to acheive the look of mercury glass so I did just that on the back of all glass panels. I decided I wanted a smokier look so I sprayed a mist of matte black over it. Once I was happy with the results I let dry and focused on the metal frame. 4 coats of matte black paint later... I was done!

I must say I surprised myself with this one! This projrct taught me to step out of my comfort zone once and a while and just goes to show with the right outlook and some patience there is potential in everything!

Products Used

Rust‑Oleum 267727 Specialty Mirror Spray 6‑Ounce Silver
Rust-Oleum Matte Black Spray Paint
White Vineagar
JB Weld

Project Category

Best Faux-Luxe

Galvanized Armour

Heather Michelle Pianowski Barnes — Wed, 08 Aug 2018 01:55:08 +0000

Those curves just said “armour” to me, so I went with it! A fantastic faux finish to look like galvanized metal. Layers of Driftwood Gray, White Glaze Effects, and Van Dyke Brown bring this dirty, rustic metal feel to life. This end table became the center of attention in a modern farmhouse living room and completed the look with perfection!!

Products Used

Driftwood Gray
White Glaze Effects
Van Dyke Brown Glaze

Project Category

Best Faux-Luxe

Faux barn wood finish

Tammy Schultz — Tue, 07 Aug 2018 23:52:49 +0000

These solid pine doors were a custom project for a client who couldn't find a stain color she was happy with,so we went old school. First step was a heavy coat of strong brewed tea, after that dried we did a coat of premixed vinegar with 000 steel wool disolved in it. We sealed it and,wha laaa- great faux barn wood doors!

Products Used

Lipton Tea Bags
Vinegar
000 steel wool
General Finishes High Performance Top Coat

Project Category

Best Faux-Luxe

Rejoice with Rustic Faux

Amanda Renfro Dillon — Tue, 07 Aug 2018 22:43:30 +0000

These "rustic" filing cabinets were recreated from a finish in a photograph, emailed to me online, and a small drawer face the client removed from her brand new desk. The project took many layers to create such a worn, rustic finish. These pieces make me wan to curl up with a book and a blanket next to a fire!

Cleaned with a DNA prep, these pieces were sanded and primed with BIN. The base color coat is GF French Linen, sprayed with an HVLP Titan Turbine Capspray 95. I needed a glaze darker than van dyke brown, so I used GF water based walnut stain as glaze. Glaze was hand applied using a spong and rags. HPTC sealed the color, and then AS dark and black waxes deepened the shading.

Products Used

BIN Primer
GF Linen
GF walnut water based stain
GF HPTC
AS Dark and Black waxes

Project Category

Best Faux-Luxe