Often, the creativity I get to apply is in coming up with the design for a mural, decorative pattern, or specialty finish. Sometimes, though, the creativity required is in figuring out how to replicate or restore an existing finish – which was the case with two recent projects!
The first example is a garage door that looks like it had a faded finish on mahogany wood. In reality, the garage door was metal - and the convincing wood-look was created by a photograph of wood that was printed on the metal! Unfortunately, continuous sun exposure and the elements had faded the printing – in some places all the way to white – creating patchy faded spots all across the door. The “before” picture is below:
The garage door before restoration
My challenge in this case was how to restore the faded areas without covering over the wood-look that surrounded the light and white areas! My solution needed some transparency, but also enough opacity to fully cover the white and almost-white spots. The specifics of my fix will have to remain in my bag of secret-sauce tricks, but with a little bit of experience with similar situations (although none exactly like this one!) and some experimentation, I found a combination of stain, acrylic paint and urethane that did the trick. When the homeowner stepped out to see the final result, she said “it looks exactly like it did when they installed it brand-new!”
During restoration
The final result!
The second example is a decorative lime plaster finish in the entry, stairway and upstairs hall of an historic home in Newton. Since the finish dated back to the 1920’s, it became stained over the years. Most of the staining appeared to be from nicotine from previous owners, but there was also a good amount of regular wear-and-tear stains from hands near railings, switches, doorways, etc. Below is one “before” picture”:
The stairwell before restoration (note discoloration at top of wall and near railing)
The big challenge on this job was to somehow cover the stains (they would not wash off!) while maintaining the color subtle variations in the finish as well as a unique glitter/sparkle that was in the plaster! For this project, I teamed up with another decorative painter – and through a little bit of experimentation, we found a solution using a specialty paint that we watered down, a wax – and a secret ingredient to maintain the sparkle! The end result hit the nail on the head, covering the stains while still capturing some of the color variation and glitter of the original walls! As an added bonus, our new finish was sealed – meaning the walls will not stain like they did previously!!
The stairwell after!
Front entryway after
Enjoy!
Jason