Originally uploaded by THAT Painter Lady.

Lots of people write in for ideas. They want ideas on what to paint their walls.  What color they should paint their cabinets.  What to paint in their dining room.  While we LOVE helping people it’s really hard to tell someone else what to paint on their walls for a number of reasons.

#1 – We aren’t THERE.  We can’t see your home and get a feel for your tastes and likes and how the light comes in the windows and what the accessories look like.  Those are all things you consider when you’re going to paint a room.  We often look for colors in the things in the room.  The bedspread, the couch, the paintings…

And #2 – If someone writes in and says, “Hey – I want to paint my son’s room. “  I can easily shoot back an answer.  Let’s say….PURPLE!   But what if the boy’s room is decorated with denim and southwestern style furniture.  ?!  Purple isn’t really gonna end up looking right.  And YOU won’t be real happy with us.  Lol!  We really dislike it when people aren’t real happy with us.  Really…dislike. 

So…where do you get inspired?  Friends houses?  Your mom?  Magazines?  Do you need inspiration?  Don’t hesitate to ask, but it would help if you include pictures.  So we can see what’s going on in the room…near the room…around the room.  But we aren’t you’re only source of inspiration.  Nope…there are lots of places WE go to for inspiration.  Yes, even we need to be inspired now and then. 

What do we do?  We almost ALWAYS go to book stores and look through the books on painting rooms.  Design books, kids rooms, faux finishing books, mural books, trompe l’oeil books.  They are all CHALK FULL of GREAT ideas!

Another place is in your kids books.  You love ‘em.  They love ‘em.  Why not look to them for inspiration?  Debra chose a kids room mural that she painted for the local woman’s shelter by looking through books and combining ideas.  It’s really such a great way to get inspired.  Don’t you think that giraffe is adorable?  She found it in a book!  Here’s part of her story:

“I stripped wallpaper for a few days before I could paint. They originally couldn’t get the wallpaper to stick on the walls at the shelter, so the gals used Super Glue to paste up the wallpaper. You might think that was a good idea until it needed to be stripped. The wallpaper came of in tiny little bits. What a mess!  Horrible horrible mess…”

Can you imagine?  Gads…

It was a cool job… click on Giraffe Mural to see all the pictures of this room that Debra painted at the shelter as one of her annual volunteer/donation jobs.  They’re fun and one of them you might recognize!

Where do you go for inspiration?

This was a fun project.  The door is outside and leads to an exterior laundry room. The entire patio area was painted to look like a garden room. (I’ll share more of this mural later)

The door was a plain white 3 panel door.

We purchased 3 square decorative frames and one metal decorative ironwork scroll. The frames came with the metal scrolls already inserted.

The door was painted with a green/black frame (we measured the metal frames first to see where to paint in the outside frame color.

I patted on some yellow and brown watered down paint over the green to make it look weathered.

The frame was painted to create a “ruffled” edge at the top to blend in with the metal scroll.

Sky blue was panted above the green to create the illusion of sky.

Oh… check out the door frame. It was distressed using the faux wood techniques I teach in my video.  Distressed Faux Wood Techniques

Then I painted in a flower pot garden plus I added some hills in the distance.

The iron pieces were added to the door and Presto!

We had what looked like a garden gate on the door.

Click here to see

PETITE WALL ART

This is so cool! Anyone who is decorating their home will find a ton of information on the DesignTalk.com website. They have special sections for guest authors and DesignTalk.com asked me to join in the fun.

Choosing a theme is an important decision to make before you jump in and start painting rooms.  I answer your questions about using paint in the total design scheme of your new room. This new series of articles actually answers visitor mail.

These are real life questions, just like you might have… and I answer them with a variety of ideas for choosing paint treatments for your rooms. The first two articles cover:

• How to paint recessed niches, arches and shelves.

• How to tone down a to-bright room

UPDATE: The Design Talk Website Is No Longer In Business… 

You should check out this site DesignTalk right now! See you their and Let’s Go Paint!

Technorati Tags: Debra Conrad, That Painter Lady, Painting, rooms, design, murals, faux, decorating, talk

Have you ever thought of painting a Faux Brick Wall on Brick? Do you have brick in your home that has been painted? All too often this is the solution used by homeowners to “freshen up” worn red brick. Maybe the design of the room called for something other than worn red brick.

The easy solution was to paint the brick…mortar included.

While each home and homeowner is different…and we all have our good ideas, how can learn to paint the brick back to original? How about painting the brick with a faux finish to resemble brick? It really is much easier than trying to strip all that old paint.

Question from subscriber:

The following is an email with just that question and my solution to the problem…including a link to some free information.

Hi Debra,

I have four real brick pillars on our house – 2 are four-sided supports for the entryway porch and 2 are one-sided at either side of the garage.

All this brick was painted white (horror of horrors) when the house was built 13 years ago – I would like to restore the brick to a natural brick appearance — I have not been able to find a local painter who does this special work and am wondering if your instructional materials would applicable to this particular project.

I do not want a single color brick so there would obviously be some artistic skills required to replicate the multi-color design (with natural variations) from brick to brick – Can you help me?? Any advice/suggestions??

My Answer:

I have faced this problem many times. Imagine being paid to paint a brick wall back to looking like bricks after someone covered them with paint. The fact that the grout is usually painted as well makes painting in the faux brick wall back to original looking brick and mortar… a challenge.

The techniques taught in the

Faux Brick Wall

Video and eBook for mixing colors and painting in “bricks” one brick at a time… are very useful. They are the techniques I use to faux bricks for clients.

The trick is to paint the grout first. You can be as messy with the grout color over the bricks as you want. Just get the grout color in to every nook and cranny before you start painting the bricks. This will make your life so much easier.

Then just worry about painting the face of each brick. One at a time…so you will get the variations.

Thanks for the question.

Want to see the process in step by step photos?

Here is a link to photos and actual step by step of repainting brick to look like brick. Check out the inventive way they painted in the grout using real mortar!

Click on each of their photos to see all the details up close!

Faux Brick on Brick Finish

I know you think you recognize this Tuscan Style Mural… but it is my own morphing of some other art and then I painted it on the actual wall.

The niche over the fireplace is molded in drywall and textured the same as the surrounding walls, as is the mantle.

Getting a ladder up to this area was a problem… the hearth is very wide. And of course a hearth can’t be moved.

So… in order to paint most of this mural, I had to paint while sitting on the mantle and swiveling my body from the hip – up.  This means I was was actually  painting backwards most of the time.

I balance myself with one foot on a stepladder and my left hand with a death grip on the mantle edge. What I wouldn’t do to get a smile from a homeowner.

The home owner was having a problem finding a piece of art for this area … Problem Solved!

This mural is actually framed with a “fake” frame. I combined a few art pieces to “copy” for this mural. The mural is in the waiting room of a “Day Spa” – where the owner wanted art… but nothing “precious” or expensive.

I used a stencil (used for faux molding) to create the egg and dart style frame. A little highlights and shadows and the frame looks real!

This mural is floor to ceiling in size. This salon wanted a view for their customers.

The urn in the center of the mural was eventually removed. (I didn’t like it either).

Visit My Italian Design Website For More Tuscan Style Decorating Ideas