Painting Secrets , livre ebook

P AINTING S ECRETS
from Brain Santos The Wall Wizard

Meredith Books
Des Moines, Iowa
Table of CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Meet the Wizard

1. THE MAGIC OF COLOR
Color basics
Color combinations
Color variations
Color and emotion
Creating a color plan
Just the right amount of color
Formulas for success
All about walls

2. PREP WORKS
Tools that rule
Ready the room
Wood work
Patch work
Repairing drywall
Repairing plaster
Repairing concrete
Repairing brick
Smoothing textured walls
Installing new drywall
Goodbye old paint
Working with a contractor
Goodbye to wallpaper
Clear out and clean up
Tackling tough stains
Cleaning ceilings
Cleaning brick and concrete surfaces
Primers and sealers
Ready, set one more thing

3. PAINTING LIKE A PRO
Tools that rule
Making the grade
What s your type?
How much paint do you need?
Shake it up, baby!

Prepping paint
Basic painting 101
Brush works
Pad works
Roller works
Working a room
Hit the walls
Ceiling solutions
Trim works
Painting doors
Painting with a power sprayer
Painting paneling
Painting countertops
Painting bricks and concrete
Painting floors

4. CLEAN AND STORE
Clean as you go
Total tool care
Storage solutions
The dish on disposal

5. MAGICAL PAINT EFFECTS
Faux get it?
The right tools
What lies beneath
That glazed look
Positive or negative
Positive thinking
Negative finishes
Basic faux effects

TIPS, TRICKS, TOOLS, AND MORE
Index
Metric conversions
Credits
Dedication and thank-yous
Notes
introduction
Meet the Wizard
W elcome to my world, the Wall Wizard s Workshop, where you are limited only by your imagination.
You ve opened this book because you re interested in painting your home. You re not alone: Painting is the No. 1 project that do-it-yourselfers tackle, boosting the manufacture of paint and painting supplies into a multibillion-dollar-a-year industry. Unfortunately that industry doesn t teach you how to paint! How can you be good at something without ever being taught? It s like trying to read War and Peace without knowing your ABCs.
That s where the Wall Wizard can help. I ve spent 25 years making mistakes; that s why I m an expert at knowing what works and what doesn t. Throughout the following chapters, I ll teach you the fundamental principles of painting and share scores of tips, tricks, and techniques that I ve learned through years of hands-on experience.
As a fourth-generation painting contractor, I learned from my father and grandfather the value of working with my hands. I helped by pasting paper, cleaning tools, and keeping the work area neat. By age 16 I was a certified apprentice, and two years later I helped found Wallpapers to Go, a successful West Coast company specializing in painting, faux finishing, and wallcoverings. After becoming a licensed finishes contractor, I discovered that people wanted to learn how to paint, faux finish, and wallpaper, but they had limited resources to teach them. That s when I began presenting painting workshops at home shows around the world. In more than 20 years of traveling, I ve presented more than 5,000 workshops and reached over a million people.
My philosophy is simple: Knowledge is power. I use educational, entertaining, and empowering principles and processes-all captured in this book-to take the feat out of home improvement projects. My mission is to educate. The manufacturers put out great products, but they don t really tell you how to use them. Anyone can pick up a brush; the problem is knowing what to do with it.
Besides learning the basics of painting, you ll discover tips for using common household products to achieve professional results. Plastic wrap, vegetable oil spray, vanilla flavoring, plastic milk jugs, garbage bags, and fabric softener are just a few of the tools I use to produce extraordinary professional finishes-and so can you.
Even if you have never before picked up a paintbrush, you can create your own wall magic in no time. All it takes is a little planning, patience, and persistence. There is a Wizard within us all, when you learn the why behind the how-tos of painting.
When you look through Wizard eyes, you can see the magic all around you.
chapter 1
The Magic of Color

Y our home is your largest, most visible, and most expensive possession, and what color do you paint it? White! There are 16 million colors to choose from, but you wimp out and play it safe. Boring! And by the way, antique white, vanilla, and off-white are not colors.
Color is perhaps the most cost-effective and powerful tool in your decorating bag of tricks. Yet few people know the simple rules that govern this important element of design.
First understand there is absolutely no wrong color to use. Any color can be livable when the hue, value, intensity, and lighting are correct and in balance. If you want to paint a powder room purple with silver leafing and a black glaze, go for it! These color combinations used in the appropriate context, scale, and proportion can be stunning. Used inappropriately, though, they can appear garish and overwhelming.
So go ahead-experiment! If the outcome isn t what you expected, the worst thing that can happen is you ll have to paint the walls again-hardly an irreversible disaster. In this chapter, I ll explain some common myths, mistakes, and misconceptions about color. You ll learn about proven tools and techniques and be empowered with the knowledge and language of color to express your own style with skill and confidence.


COLOR COMBINATIONS
Learn the simple rules that direct your design-page 10


CREATING A COLOR PLAN
Train your eyes to see color at work all around you-page 18


FORMULAS FOR SUCCESS
Choose the paint that s best for your rooms-page 24
Color BASICS

E ffective design depends on the relationship of different colors in a room. Color creates a room s personality, defines its style, sets its mood, controls its space, accents its advantages, and hides its faults. It can turn a dull space into a warm, inviting environment. Yet one color alone can t achieve these benefits. You need a combination of colors that complement and reinforce a particular look or mood. This selection of color combinations becomes your decorating plan.

Changing the wall color and a few accessories creates three different looks in the same room.

THE COLOR WHEEL
Most people haven t seen a color wheel since middle-school art class or high school home economics, but a Wall Wizard knows it is a handy design tool. A color wheel shows how colors relate to each other. Three relationships are of particular interest:

PRIMARY COLORS
The most basic of color relationships, primary colors are the three pure colors found in light: red, yellow, and blue. They cannot be broken down into other colors, but when used in various combinations, they create all other colors. Primary colors are equidistant from one another on the color wheel.

SECONDARY COLORS
The second level of colors are orange, green, and purple. Each is created from equal amounts of two primary colors. On the color wheel, each secondary color falls halfway between the two primary colors it contains and directly opposite the third primary color.

TERTIARY COLORS
Tertiary, or third-level colors, are created by combining equal parts of a primary and its adjacent secondary color. Yellow and orange, for example, form yellow-orange.
Color levels build on each other. This means you need primary colors to form secondary colors, and both to develop tertiary colors.
The bottom color wheel presents the differences among pure colors, or hues, shown in the middle ring; shades, created by adding black, shown in the outer ring; and tints, created by adding white, shown in the inner ring.

Color COMBINATIONS

T he color wheel demystifies color relationships and helps you find colors that work well together. No hard-and-fast rules exist about which colors should be used together, but some natural combinations make successful matches. The following classic combinations are considered the basics for beginners.
Analogous colors. This set uses three colors located next to each other on the color wheel. Green, yellow-green, and yellow make an analogous arrangement. So do blue-green, blue, and blue-purple. Analogous colors are harmonious because the colors are closely related and your eyes pass over them easily.

Analogous
Complementary colors. Two colors located opposite each other on the color wheel complement each other. The most common example is the red and green of Christmas. Another is blue and orange. Because a complementary plan combines exact opposites, it balances warm and cool colors. Complements stimulate one another but can seem garish if used together in full intensity.

Complementary
Triad colors. Three colors, or a triad, are spaced equally in distance from each other on the color wheel. Red, blue, and yellow are a triad, for example, as is orange, green, and purple-and there are many more. Triads form complex, lively color plans, so controlling values and intensities is important.

Triad
Split complementary. This scheme combines a color plus the color on each side of its complement. Pairing yellow with blue-purple and red-purple, for example, makes a split complementary plan. The subtle shift in the complementary colors enriches the plan.

Split Complementary


A triad of primary colors-yellow, red, and blue-creates a bold color plan that moves through adjoining rooms.

The closely related colors of this room s walls, furnishings, and accessories form an analogous plan.

Because these colors are opposite each other on the color wheel, the cool violet accents complement the warm yellows.
The following color combinations are also successful but require a little more thought, control, and balance.