DIY Painting Decorative Coatings: Comprehensive Guide to Faux Finishes!

this paint live tv i'm christy idaho painter in this video this is going to be all about decorative coatings they've got metallic finishes i got suede finishes i've got grit finishes i've got all kinds of finishes decorative finishes old school faux finishes if you want to know how to make your walls look amazing stay tuned for this compilation video of my decorative coatings videos so before we get to the videos uh don't forget hit the subscribe button hit the notification bell that way you get notified every time i come out with a new video it's free simple and easy to do it's never costed anything it's never going to cost you anything we're not going to try to market to you it's just a simple way to notify you by email every time i come out with a new video it's just a couple clicks subscribe notify you got to hit both of them simple way to help support our channel and if you enjoy our videos don't forget give us a thumbs up we really appreciate it now let's get on to applying some decorative finishes so grab yourself a beer grab yourself a bowl of popcorn or some snacks and let's get watching somebody some video all right tip number one i'm getting my walls ready to apply a decorative coating here and i've got several options i'm choosing from to do a decorative finish i might do a metallic finish i could um i might do a venetian plaster i'm going over with the client what i'm going to do but irregardless of what i do i want a really good surface to apply my finish on i've got some imperfections in the walls that i've already spackled and i'm going to give you a tip how i find these imperfections and if you miss anything and you start doing your decorative finish then that's just going to show up in your finish so you want to find all these little nicks and dings on your wall and get rid of those right off the bat i like using just an led light a handy one that i can keep in my tool bag and hold by hand and this led light will make everything show up on your wall and just by shining this led dot light down the wall i can see a nick right here in this wall that i could not see prior to that after i've already did all my spackling on here i thought i was complete but this one ding right here would show up really bad when i'm doing my metallic finish or my um whatever finish i'm doing a venetian plaster might fill it all in but you want to get rid of this stuff so i'm going to look all over my wall look for anything that i need to spackle using an led light so that is tip number one all right tip number two when it comes to getting that perfect finish with your decorative coatings is to scrape your walls down of any little burrs that might be sticking up now i've got two tools that i keep in my tool bag i keep a two-edged knife and i keep a lin bite scraper either one of these tools is great for scraping off any little burrs and i can use my light once again to scrape these burrs off or i can um just look uh without a light itself because i can see these burrs very well and this little burr right here i just scraped it right off with my lin bite scraper it's got a carbide blade on it and it'll scrape anything um anything like these little peaks that are sticking out because what happens is when you trowel over those they'll leave a little dam when the trowel actually hits it and it will make your finish not look good so i can see some little burrs sticking up on this wall here and there that i'll just want to scrape off prior to doing any sanding so use a lin bite scraper or a two-edged knife these are two great tools for just scraping off any burrs i can see a few here there this isn't as sharp as the lin bite scraper so the lin bite scraper just takes a lot less effort so i can use my scraper and i couldn't even see this right here without a light so i can see it now that'll scrape right off so i'm just going to go along scrape off any perfections on my wall and then we're going to get on to the next process to preparing our walls all right we're on to tip number three tip number three is sanding your walls so once i've got everything scraped once i got everything filled i'm going to quickly go over my walls with a sander and you can use just a little hand sanding sponge or you can use a um power sander something like this this is going to work a lot faster than just doing it by hand i like using my ekasan 3x4 sander i'm going to be using an eka silk sponge and this is a very fine sponge because i'm not really like sanding the walls down i'm just trying to sand any imperfections off the walls or i'm also going to be sanding my spatula so just using a three by four sander i'm just going to quickly go over my walls [Music] [Laughter] [Music] so i'm just cruising right along sanding now once again i you can just do this quickly by hand using a sanding sponge or just a piece of sandpaper once again i like an orbital sander if i was doing a lot bigger room i actually have a five inch or i have a six inch sander too this is a really small room it's already smooth walls so i'm just quickly going over it all i needed was just a three by four sander and these are smooth walls so i don't have to do a whole lot of sanding but once again i want to get these imperfections um off the wall and i want these walls smooth because when i start troweling on my finish i don't want any imperfections showing up in my finish so i've got my filling done got my scraping done and i got my sandy done and that's it for tip number three and now we're going to go on to tip number four all right tip number four is always strain and box your paints now if you don't strain your paints nowadays paints have a lot of debris in them whether they're high-end paints or not the high-end paints have less debris in them but if you go to all this work prepping your walls get them all nice and smooth and ready for your deck to finish and then you paint your walls and you get bits and pieces of paint on them you're just going to have to go back and scrape and sand that off so you want to spray or not spray but strain your paints now i like using just a five gallon bucket screen right here to strain my paints and make sure your bucket is also clean before putting your paints in there you could strain your paints have a dirty bucket and still get a bunch of debris in your paint so also boxing your paints this is good practice even though this is just an undercoat for a decorative finish if it wasn't an undercoat you're gonna see this dark color it's very critical that you do box your paints that way you have color consistency from gallon to gallon and if you have to go back and do any touch-ups you're less likely to have those show up or see where you start and stop because of color inconsistencies now higher-end paints are less likely to have color inconsistencies than cheaper paints and that is one of the reasons why it's beneficial to pay more money for a premium pay now boxing your pain if you don't know the term boxing your pain it's just mixing all your paints together into one container and then we're gonna stir that up and um and then we'll all be done so i'm just going to empty this in here and then i'll show you you can a little trick if you have just throw away latex gloves i can take and just use throwaway latex gloves to strain my paint and i won't get any paint on my hands i could lift this up and i can allow it to drain out or if i want to do it faster i'll have to wash my hands but now it's strained i like to reuse my strainers i don't like to throw them away even though they're cheap now i can just rinse this thing off drop it into a five gallon bucket with water in it rinse it later and then i'll end up reusing it now my paint is strained not gonna get any debris or any um dirt or anything on my walls once i paint them all right tip number five when it comes to getting the perfect decorative finish is to prep with the right tape now i've got three tapes in front of me and all these are frog tape it's very critical that you do use frog tape otherwise you're gonna have your decorative finish bleeding underneath your tape getting where you don't want it and you won't get laser straight lines there's something significantly different about frog tape than every other tape in the world frog tape has a patented technology on the outside edge of the tape it's a polymer that swells up with it when any liquid hits the tape and it doesn't allow anything to bleed underneath it so i'm going to be masking down here on some cove basing and i don't want anything to bleed on that cove basing because it won't come off and i'm going to be doing some overlapping colors and i don't want it to get on my overlapping colors and any bleeding underneath there's frog tape this is a blue frog tape all three of these have the same technology this is a little less expensive than the green frog tape this is a premium paper comes individually packed these come in four packs they're not a premium paper so it's a little bit cheaper it's more like geared towards contractors this is a little bit more expensive premium paper 21 day release on this green i believe the blue is a 14 day release and if you run into any situations i'm in i got another commercial bathroom i'm working on here i did one decorative finish um on and then overlapped it and i had a tape on to the one finish and i didn't want to pull off my finish that dried overnight because i had two finishes that were budding up next to each other so i used frog tape delicate this would be for like masking on a finish you don't want to peel off masking on wallpaper stuff like that that's delicate so frog tape yellow so you can see this is individually packed premium paper delicate surface frog tape so whenever you're doing decorative coatings always take a mask with frog tape all right tip number six is using the proper roller when you're applying your base coat now when i'm doing my decorative finishes i'm always undercoating them with a matte finish paint and it's very critical that you use the right roller in a high-end roller one thing you don't want to use is a cheap roller because what cheap rollers will do is they'll leave lengths on your wall after you're done painting and those lints are gonna show up as imperfections in your decorative finish and then you also don't want a heavy stipple on your wall so i like using woven pro rollers and when i'm doing my undercoats i like using a three inch woven pro roller it's gonna give me a really nice smooth finish on my walls so choose the proper roller when you're doing your undercoats and there's nothing also more frustrating than having a cheap roller that leaves a lot of splatter everywhere or doesn't cover very well on the cover very well on the wall so i'm using a good high-end paint as an undercoat on these walls i'm going to be using regal select to do my undercoat and once again i'm using a woven pro 3 8 inch lint free roller tip number one is part of the prep process and when you're applying a metallic finish i'm going to be going over the edges and the way we apply this metallic finish i use a microfiber roller and i'm going to be jamming this roller up against my tape to do my finish along my edges i'm not going to be using a brush anywhere when i'm using metallic finishes so it's really critical when i'm hitting that tape with my metallic coating that i'm using a tape that's not going to allow the product to bleed underneath it and the only tape that you can use that will give you success when it comes to that is frog tape so i've got up on my ceilings on my edges where i've started doing my coating i use frog tape and there's different frog tapes you can use that have the same technology and it's a polymer that swells up on the edge of the tape that doesn't allow any liquid to bleed underneath frog tape has a professional grade blue tape right here they also have a green tape which is a little more expensive and then they also have a yellow tape which is um for delicate surfaces so just choose the right tape for the right situation i'm using frog tape blue and i'm running two um i got inch and a half tape i'm running two um rows of it so i don't get anything on my adjoining surface and i'm not going to get anything bleeding underneath it when i pull my tape it's going to be a laser straight line so use frog tape on your edges all right tip number two is working it in manageable and sizeable areas so i'm going to be i already got my first coat done on this i'm going to show you give you a demonstration of doing my second coat now i don't want to work in too large of areas otherwise it's going to dry too fast i'm not going to have anything to trowel or manipulate to achieve the coating or effect that i want so i typically work in about three foot sections i'm going to work in about a three foot section like this i'm going to get my metallic finish on and then i'm going to use the tool to create the fact that i want i'm going to be using in this effect i'm using a metallic suede i'm using a bow arrow flex trowel so i'm going to roll on with a microfiber roller in about a three foot square section i'm going to roll it on random roll and then i'm going to trowel that area you want to just use sizable areas i don't want to try to put it all on this wall all at once because it's going to dry too fast if you have issues with working yo um because it's too hot the products dry too fast you can use a long time open glaze bow aero has a long time open glaze that will give you more working time i never use those glazes i just work in manageable areas where i can work quickly and efficiently and then just move on to this next section so tip number two is work in sizable manageable areas all right tip number three is i'm gonna be working my metallic suede on in random roll on x pattern and i'm gonna be working this thing get my sizable area that i can manage about a three foot section and this tip what i want to do is get my metallic finish on and i want to make sure that i get it distributed evenly i don't want heavy heavy areas anywhere i'll get it on about a three foot section now i'm going to random exit until it's distributed evenly across that whole section it's very important to have it even now once i get it even i can begin applying the effect that i want and i'm using this is a metallic finish and a metal metallic suede finish and i'm doing this random arcing pattern now then you get a little something on there just like that so very critical to get it distributed just like that tip number three all right tip number four once i'm getting this on distribute it evenly and then i begin my troweling and this one is um specifically for metallic suede got my pattern and it does pertain to if you're ragging it or if you're random axing it with a roller what i want to do or this tip is actually do not over trowel have a tendency to do is continue traveling and working the trowel too much and over trolling it all right so i got it on now i'm gonna begin troweling and i don't want to continue to trial i'm just gonna hit it get that effect that i want i'm just troweling it in just a random arcing motion i like to go the opposite direction that way i can have the look that i want from different directions at different angles that suede is going to really pop at different angles i don't want to go in the same direction all the time but don't over trowel you have a tendency to keep traveling and traveling and traveling and the stuff is going to dry really quick and then what's going to happen it's going to start pulling and i'm dragging and not giving you a smooth suede finish and that pertains to metallic suede but even if you're doing another type of effect you could be using a turf tool or a rag tool if you um start to overwork it it's going to dry to fit too fast and your effect probably is not going to come out to the look that you want it to look so don't over trowel all right tip number five is and this is very important and it's working your edges so i'm going to get my manageable area get it random rolled on very important that you random roll and now it's important to hit your edges and not leave these edges left with any type of stippling especially if you're going to come back and not finish this job and you're going to finish it later on because one of the great things about bowero finishes is you can i can stop right here i can come back and start on this section right here and you're not going to see a difference from starting and stopping but you will if you don't hit these edges knock these edges down if you come back later there's going to be stiff lane stippling and it's going to be rough and these edges actually dry quicker than the center because there's more product on the edges so i definitely want to hit my edges and not allow these edges to dry and stipple so work these edges hit them flatten them out knock them down before they dry one of the you know great things about this product is once again you can start and stop you know your project right in the middle of the project and come back later that's with bow arrow coatings that may not necessarily be true with some of the other coatings out there but it is with bower it's great now i'm just because of demonstration purposes in this video i started right here in the middle in the middle because the cameras are focused right here but typically what i'm going to start is i'm going to start from probably an edge i'm going to start from this corner work my way down and work my way across this wall it's not as critical with bowero coatings you can really start anywhere but it's really good practice just start on at one end and work your way across the wall and i like to work my way from top down too so i'm going to come down and across this wall tip number six is keeping a wet rag with you at all times if you see i'm keeping a wet rag in my hand for cleaning my trowel because what happens is your product will dry on your trowel and then you'll start to leave bits and pieces of your product along when you're traveling so i use a wet rag to wipe my trowel off to keep it clean at all times be careful these flex trowels are pretty sharp so when you're wiping you don't want to put too much pressure and slip with your hand i typically wear rubber gloves too when i'm actually working so you can wear gloves but make sure you have a wet rag and keep your trowel clean and dry all the time so you can see i'm just cleaning off my trowel getting it all nice and clean keep that thing clean shiny polished i like using a microfiber rag this is just a blue microfiber there's a lot of different types here's another rag i have right here that i'm using i have two rags that i keep you know all times in case this one gets really dirty i can just switch to another one and set and have to clean it right then and there but microfiber you know works really really well all right tip number seven is about a tool keeping a specific tool with you at all times this is a lend by scraper and this thing will come in handy quite often when doing metallic finishes now i got a little burr on the finish right here from um it was something left behind when i was um doing the first coat and if i don't scrape that off when i when i'm troweling it's gonna look really weird right there so i can just take my microfiber or not my microfiber but my linvite scraper i can scrape that off right there and then it's going to be gone very simple and easily a limbite scraper has a really sharp carbide blade on it and it makes scraping things off really easy to do so tip number seven is that number seven tip number seven is keeping a len by scraper with you at all times all right tip number eight is going to be using another specific tool and this is going to be specifically for metallic suede finishes if you're trying to apply a metallic suede there's a…