Fauxology: Studying the Visual Magic of Faux Finishing and Interior Design (brought to you by Garay Artisans)

The art of woodgraining is traditionally called Faux Bois (sounds like Foh Bwa).  It is a craft that takes a lot of time to perfect but I consider it an absolutely necessity for any faux finishing company to have this ability in their bag of tricks.  We get called in to do a LOT of woodgraining — front doors, garage doors, archways, trim work, existing cabinetry, elevator doors (yes, really) and ceiling beams to name a few.  Most of our work consists of matching existing woodtones and we can work on a large variety of base materials (i.e., metal, paint grade wood, drywall, etc.).  We recently fooled a carpenter with just one of our samples (let alone the work), which made our day.  It truly is a very gratifying finish — and every step, from base coat to topcoat is equally important for the effect to be as realistic as possible.

The following are pictures of one of the transfauxmations we did this year.

We started with a white painted cabinet.

You can start seeing the changes here.  We began by applying a woody yellow base coat and then proceeded to the flogging and graining phases.  We protect and tape the area well since we?spray some of the coats — it gives a seamless finish.

Our technique involves one flogging phase and two graining phases. You can see the difference a second layer adds by comparing them side by side.  The right has one layer while the left has the second. Quite a difference, no?

I’m putting this shot in so that you can see the grain details we work in.  I LOVE seeing these grain patterns appear — it makes me so happy to see what a flick in the wrist can do.  We usually do not use the rockers since we find greater control over the pattern created with other brushes.

Here is the final shot before everything was put back together.  I’ve put the original back in the corner for you to see the difference.  When you step back, you see the overall effect but if you were to step closer, that’s when the layers of graining details really shine.

Hope you liked the befaux and after shots!  Next week, we are starting work on very high ceiling beams doing faux bois marquetry using intricate designs.  We should be done with it by the beginning of next year — I’ll be sure to post those pics.  Have a great day!