Tuscan Painting – Faux Painting the Entire House to Look Authentic

This brave homeowner wants to faux paint with Tuscan painting style finishes in every room!

The question is how to migrate the colors and textures throughout the house so it all blends and looks great.  They want it to look authentic and not a mixed up mess.

Dear Debra,    My wife and I decided to paint our house ourselves, with the help of your Seven Steps.  Our house is a Tuscany style so we want to add those great colors and textures to our walls.  Our walls, drywall is already textured so we believe we can make it look very authentic.  I had found the colors we wanted to use online, but I lost the page and now nothing we find is adequate.  What I had found were Tuscany colors that subtly move from color to color so you can change rooms from one color to the next without shocking your brain to retain the ambiance that follows that Florence feel.  I wondered if you knew a place or website we could find to offer that for what we search for? Thank-you for all your wonderful help.
Best Regards, Robert Mendelson

Many websites and books can give you small bits of help with this problem. I am sure with extensive searching I could find one that fits the bill.

Here is what I recommend to help you learn what colors and techniques to use in your home.

Behr.com has a Color Smart site that is very helpful with choosing colors.  You can choose and preview color combinations before you even start. They even have a place to insert photos of your home and change the colors of the walls. This service has a small charge, about $5 for one year.

The cool thing about this site is that you can have little pots of custom tinted paint made up just for you. There is a charge for this also… but you if you are faux painting it might just be enough paint to faux an entire wall when you add the glazing medium.  Pretty cheap to experiment.

Experiment and shop at Behr.com

Behr.com has some tutorial for choosing color palettes that flow from room to room.  You can also use the Color Wheel tutorial with video.

And… you can’t beat a site that offers a paint calculator so you don’t buy too much paint that you can’t return. Behr.com paint calculator.

What about using lots of Faux Finishes from room to room?

The idea here is to be subtle and easy on the eye. Your walls are textured and the faux finishes will accentuate the texture… so go with it.  Layering on one or two color faux paint techniques is easy using a very soft technique.  The idea is to have sheer colors with lots of glaze and not too much paint.

Subtle color variations and color changes are key to creating a peaceful and beautiful environment. Tuscan colors are often shown as bold gold and green, but in Tuscany the colors are muted and graceful.  Keep in mind that your walls should envelope you with a warm… cozy… homey feeling. This is what the Tuscan homes all have in common.

I hope this was helpful… let us all know how it goes.

Here is an entire website devoted to Tuscan Style Decorating