Decorative Paint Recipes: A Step-By-Step Guide to Finishing Touches for Your Home

by Lynne Robinson and Richard Lowther

A perfect companion to the phenomenal bestseller Paint Recipes, Decorative Paint Recipes shows how to use basic techniques to create fun and sophisticated trims, patterns, and embellishments. Filled with inspirational photos and helpful illustrations, this no-nonsense guide to inexpensive flourish and finesse lets anyone bring a fresh new look to virtually any surface--from walls to rocking chairs to wainscotting. Easy instructions include step-by-step...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811818489
• ISBN13: 9780811818483
• Release Date: October 1997
• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 1.0" x 1.0"

Customer Reviews

good for non-do-it-yourselfers

This book is packed with innovative ideas for simple paint makeovers. I normally do not involve myself with painting tasks and even my own projects turned out nicely. The only thing that might have helped is more of an explaination on what kind of and where to purchase some of the paints and quality brushes.This is a BUY book. It would make a wonderful gift for people who like to work with there hands around the home.

Wonderful, lots of great ideas

This is a wonderful book with a lot of different projects, techniques and styles. It is great for anyone wanting to add special touches and effects to their home. The book starts out overview of materials including color photos of all the tools you will need. There is also guide to mixing paints and a great chart on various materials for painting. There are many wonderful effects that can be achieved by adding your own pigments or otherwise modifying standard off the shelf paints. Numerous techniques follow including colorwashing, dry brushing, rubbing off, sponging, graining, aging, stippling, combing, stucco, embossing, stenciling, stamping and creating a few stone finishes. There are also instructions for painting on glass and using masks or resists such as wax. Over 25 projects are included for walls, floors, windows, furniture and accessories as well. Some projects include striped Greek vases, checkerboard wall, slot-machine counter front, and colorwashed flowers, daisy-strewn floorboards, cork-tile games floor, and a mosaic border. My favorite projects were the whimsical window frame, fossil tabletop and a beautiful Japanese style fabric screen. There are also some great design motifs such as shells, artichokes, and boats. Conveniently, small templates, which you can enlarge, are included for all the projects. Most of the projects use latex or acrylic paint, only a few use oils. Step-by-step directions are given for each of these techniques or projects. Close-up photos show each technique in a few different colors and recipes are given for each one. Some of the effects and projects have pictures of finished rooms or objects done with them.Almost all of the techniques here, and more, are also covered in Chronicle's companion book, Paint Recipes. What sets this book apart is that it is project oriented, focusing on the application of the recipes to the many decorative projects I've described. This is a great source of technical know how and artistic inspiration.