Painting and Decorating Concourse
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Suede Faux Finish
Faux suede is a decorative painting technique that you rely on the paint itself to do the decorative effect. Unlike most faux finishes, the craftsman is not the one who by skillful manipulation creates this finish. This one is "faux finish in a can" - for the most part. True, you cannot just roll the paint on the wall and get "suede", there are a few things the applicator must do and I will discuss those in this article.
Suede works in a well lit room. Don't use it in a windowless bathroom or hallway, you will not see any mottling. It will look like one (expensively) painted - solid color wall, that you un-necessarily jumped through a few hoops to accomplish. Also, suede is a flat paint and is not well suited for a kids room or high traffic areas where it may pick up dirt from children's hands etc...
The Paint
There are a few manufactures making a suede paint: Sherwin Williams, Ralph Loren (sold at the Home Depot stores), Valspar, and McCloskey are the brands I am familiar with. I have experience with the Sherwin Williams and Ralph Loren versions and will describe how to apply these in the following paragraphs.
Both Sherwin Williams and Ralph Loren suede paints apply similarly and these instructions work for both brands.
Base Coat
If you haven't checked yet, let me tell you that the price of the suede paint is expensive. I, perhaps trying to keep the cost under control somewhere along the way, began using flat latex paint tinted to match as a base coat. I found that this actually looks better (at least to me) than two coats of the suede finish - which tends to be too subtle for my liking. So what I do is - tint a flat paint at about 75% strength so that it is almost a perfect match to the suede paint color. Don't match it exactly, but closely. The flat paint will be slightly lighter and will give the finish a bit more action making the mottling appear a bit more noticeably. Another benefit of this system is that it is cheaper than using the suede paint as a first coat.
Apply the tinted flat base coat to the wall in the standard brush and roll method that you would use to paint the room in the normal way. Allow this coat to dry properly according to the manufacturers label. When finished you will have a room that has a uniform finish and is a bit lighter than your suede paint.
Application of the suede paint
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Mask off the base board and the ceiling so that you can freely bump into them with your brush without care. Run masking down the the ajoining walls at the inside corner so that you can freely bump these walls without getting paint on them.
The suede paint is applied in a cross hatch method of "X's" and short intersecting arcs with a latex wall brush. I use a 3" wall brush and have no problem keeping a wet edge with this size brush.
Apply the paint in "ragged" 4' x 4' sections while maintaining a wet edge. By "ragged" I mean that the "borders" of your sections should not be clearly defined, this will help to blend the sections together.
Faux Painting Tools
- Tools / Brushes
- Woodgraining
- Marbling
- Books
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See related articles: "Suede Paint Questions and Answers"
Tips:
1. Don't stop in the middle of a wall - this paint will show lap marks
2. Pull away from inside corners, as well as parallel with the corner and arc into the corner. If you mix these strokes well at the inside corners, door jambs and other obstacles, they will look good and flow naturally with the rest of the wall. This is the only hard part to applying suede - getting your inside corners, and edges at the wall obstacles, (and maybe small areas where you will need to revert to a smaller brush for some of the strokes).
3. Look your work over as you go. Try not to have big skips where you dry brushed the suede paint and didn't cover the substrate well. Small skips are usually OK - but no big skips.
If you have to touch up for some reason, you will have to blend it in well below eye level or go from breaking point to breaking point. Suede paint doesn't touch up very well so be careful with it.
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