Hello all, it's been a while

[snoozer]

It turned out very nice, congrats on a job well done. The first remodel of the kitchen 25 years ago ended with the contractor being asked to leave. He told me i was too picky and would get used to the way everything looked. Crooked tile, bad patching of walls, bad plumbing buried in the walls where the sink never drained properly and the list could go on forever. This time my son and I are doing most of it ourselves. An electrician friend ran new wiring and straightened everything out, no tripping breakers any more. It is slow going but i will finally have the kitchen I always wanted with a wall gone and a view of the yard and pond.

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Thanks for the reply.
Yes you did a fine job. Sorry to hear about your contractor, but I know guys like that are out there. I got caught up with a guy like that a few years ago, except that I wasn't getting him to do any work for me, rather, he got me to stucco a house that he was building for a woman, and was also getting me to stucco his own house. But things started to go sour between him and the woman and she stopped paying him (justifiably so as his work was shoddy at best), and he threw a lien on her house. That prevented her from getting any more money from the bank so she couldn't pay me, and he didn't pay me for the work I did on his house either because he claimed he didn't have the money because he wasn't getting paid.
The contractor guy and his wife actually started out as friends of my wife and I, but this whole affair effectively ended our friendship even though I did eventually get my money out of both of them years later. The whole thing was his own doing, he had no business being in that field of work with his limited skills and level of integrity.

Hi Mucky!
The walls are sheet rock with a skim coating of mud over top to look like lathe and plaster (the rest of the house is lathe and plaster). I rolled the walls white then brushed on a glaze and rubbed it in with torn up sheets to get the look on the walls.

Can I ask what exactly was the glaze, and how did you get the little nicks and imperfections in the wall I can see in this picture on the left side.

 

[pecan]

I put mud on the walls in heavy globs and then used a large mud trowel to spread it flat. With spaces between the globs of mud, then spreading with the trowel it caused recessed areas where the mud didn't cover. I wanted those because the glaze sinks in and is darker in those spots. I then used a fine grit sand paper (600 grit) and very lightly hand sanded the wall just to smooth trowel lines flat.

Then we rolled the walls with Behr flat bright white (same as ceiling), we rolled the walls and ceiling at the same time.

Note: I was told to use at least a semi gloss on the walls under glaze because the glaze becomes harder to work with on flat paint. But with a semi gloss not much of the glaze actually sticks on the base coat so the paint ends up looking a lot different.

It is difficult to glaze over the flat paint. I had to start and finish an wall very quickly before the glaze started drying. Once I started a wall there was no stopping.

The glaze is Behr Premium Plus Faux Glaze. You pick out the color of paint you want, just regular Behr satin is what I got. Mix 1 quart of the paint to 1 gallon of glaze.

Then I tore up sheets and with a pile of sheets in one hand and the glaze and brush in the other I'd paint a 12"x12" section with the glaze and rub with cloth to take the majority of the glaze off leaving more in the recessed areas. Then the next 12"x12" spot and so on and so on. It does take practice to know how much to rub the wall. I have done our entire house like this so by the time I got to the addition it was second nature.

Then hang the painted molding, caulk and touch up the nail holes and Bobs your Uncle

Here are some pictures.

This is a picture in the walk in closet of the new wall and existing lathe and plaster wall next to it. Shows the mud pretty well.

Here is a close up of the bathroom wall. once done. I did a beige color in the bedroom and hall and a green in the closet and bathroom. I used medium toned colors for the glaze over the white paint.

And here is some more photos I found showing the mud and glaze.

 

[Mucky_Waters]

Thanks again for your detailed response.
That is an excellent job on the walls. That kind of (distressed? Rustic?) interior wall look is becoming very popular in a lot of new homes, and people pay big money for it too. I've been planning something like that for my living room when I renovate it. I already have a similar texture in many of the rest of the rooms, except I used acrylic stucco instead of drywall mud, and it's a uniform color tone. However I like the way you have the color highlights with the dark staining in the cracks accenting them and I've been contemplating doing pretty much what you described.

This is an excellent sample picture. It looks very natural and organic. Well Done!

 

[pecan]

Thanks Mucky!

I painted the main floor of the house like this a few years ago prior to the addition and to figure it out I grabbed a large scrap board we had laying around, textured and painted it a few times until I got the technique down. That helped a lot. I also figured out fast that changing rags outs often is important. Once they get too much glaze on them, grab a new rag or you are rubbing more glaze on rather than wiping it off.

It is a pretty long and painful process though so I can imagine painters charge a lot for it. My arms were beat.