Throwing in the Trowel The trowel, not the towel. Here's a great finish for creating an earthy, warm tone for your space. Cover large areas, or highlight a space with a fairly simple and quick effect. Skip troweling. • The “rustic plaster wall” thing… uneven texture in a nice intentional way over a surface. • A simple, attractive way to deal with pitted scratched up walls. • You’ve seen it everywhere, it’s familiar. • Covers space, creates interest in a nice earthy way. • Wor

Do you have a beast of a fireplace or some other strange decor event from Days Gone By that is functional but just downright ugly? Can’t stand it anymore? Fear not! It’s possible, pretty easy and much cheaper to change that look without ripping the whole thing to pieces. I took the above photos while working with Ann Killelea (Ann Art: www.annartfauxfinishes.com). Ann had a client with a brick fireplace who really wanted a marble fireplace with a fieldstone base. No problem!

We usually just visit the bathroom, so it is cool to make it a place you’d like to visit. Which doesn’t mean you have to live there, of course. Make it into: • A favorite vacation beach. Nantucket? • Dunes, waves, water…? • Choppy, wild, waves This is not a grey solution… Well… it could be, actually. Imagine a bathroom with a bleak & stormy grey beach… steel blues & grey in the sky, tree skeletons and tangled seaweed line the tide line. Wind lashes the waves as malignant

I love this finish as it is probably the most versatile Arty Finish I do. It’s cool because you can vary the density. Wallpaper doesn’t do that - you can’t wave your hand and say “I’d like more pattern in that corner there, but soften it up in that big middle area will you?”. Well, you can with this! It’s a hand-painted finish that brings a natural feel to a space. Costs around $8 - $15/sq foot depending on your foliage density requirements. You can cover a lot of space and g

Get Your Grunge ON Decay, dirt, deterioration? Erosion? Rust, verdigris, dirt & grunge. Not usually something we’re delighted about, but oooOOoo... it’s a very urban, cool, city, grimy look. Finishes can be smooth or supercrunchy, with many stops in between. Use as a worn effect… the breakdown of one surface revealing another. Oxidization, patina, wear & tear. Bronze, copper, steel or stone variations. Choose your color scheme and turn up the volume! Working with Melissa Lout

Just for a couple of days and just because it's one of Debby's favorite finishes. And it was fun. Debby and I worked together again doing some touch-up on a troweled-on paint finish. Nice trees outside! She's back in the studio now & all set for a rigorous Summer of art fairs. Check out www.spertusstudios.com. #fauxfinish #happy #skiptrowel