[.ca] Decorative Paint & Faux Finishes (ISBN 0376013893)

gave me confidence, but not enough know-how:
The glaze technique I tried (colorwashing) didn't turn out the way it looks in the book, but the book definitely gave me the confidence to try it! One thing that would have made this book better is if there had been photos of the actual color swatch of the paints used to create the glaze effects. One of my biggest challenges was trying to figure out which colors to use. Do I go lighter? Darker? How far apart in tone should the glazes be? At first, my two glazes looked exactly the same, as if I hadn't even done anything to the wall! Then I thicken up the darkest glaze with more paint, went back over the wall and ended up with a color that was not pleasing to the eye. Eventually, I made a glaze of the base coat and washed it over the wall, and that toned the whole thing down. It's still not what I wanted, but I'm not touching it again! I'm not sure if I'd have the patience or confidence to try glazing another room. I know it takes practice to get good, but I don't have enough walls to practice on.

great book!:
This book covers everything from the simple to advanced faux finishing techniques, with lots of photos for ideas. I loved it! If you want to faux finish, this is the one. The only thing I wish it covered in more depth is how to choose the colors, but even so I highly recommend this book!

color washing, granitizing, rubbing,cross hatching and more:
Many of the techniques profiled are meant to produce *extremely subtle* tone-on-tone results. Elegant indeed. The malachite effect and the faux woodgrain effect are among the bolder choices. And if a technique is labor-intensive, the book says so. Great photography ... Personally speaking, this book is eye-candy more or less, but hopefully YOU will have the guts to try out a faux finish or two, or three. I'm chicken...for now.

Useful:
Definately a useful book, but it missed some of the subleties of doing faux techniques, such as how to soften some of the looks by going over the glaze by rubbing out a second time with a paint soaked rag (rubbing out technique). I completely remodeled a room and finished it with the rubbing out technique and I really enjoy the look. I also would suggest getting the Behr Faux Techniques dual CD-rom set. I picked one up at my local Home Depot, and it was amazing the differences in techniques, but by using both resources, I found a method and a look that suited me.

Fantastic!!:
This book is absolutely amazing, I'm a painter and I htought that painting the walls to a new home would be easy and I was completely wrong then somone bought me this book and honestly it was the best gift ever. My home looks amazing and it's all because of this book, I swear by itas the bible of house painting.