Friday, June 21, 2013

A Southern Porch In The Making… part two (Faux Tiling)

WARNING – LONG Photo Heavy Post!
I shared with you the downers of my dreamy southern porch and the big plans I had for it…here.
Well… it is FINALLY starting to shape up.
So for this post… let’s talk concrete!
I showed you the “ugly” of our existing bare concrete.
Not being able to afford new concrete… or tile… or something cool…
my solution was suppose to be an easy spray on stain.
Front Porch Faux Tile
BUT…
because of a color mishap with Valspar (the blue in the pic was suppose to be a blacker gray (Ember) according to the swatch –Ugh! )…
I had to get creative and decided to try and faux tile our porch…
This was a very ambitious project for myself… I have tried my hand at a faux stone wall (which took me three tries to get it the way I wanted it)… but not a faux tiled porch!
And so the challenge began…
I went back to Lowes and bought 3 more gallons of Valspar Stain to play with.
Call me CRAZY!

Faux Tile Front Porch (a)
This was me playing while the hubby was at work… just to show him where I was going with all this paint.
After approval (a nod from hubby)… oh and several of my neighbors…
(I was very insecure about all this)…
  I continued on… marking out my lines and faux tiling.

Faux Tile Front Porch (b)
Now… here is where I differed from the traditional laying down of painting tape for grout marks…
I used a vinyl tile from Lowes as a template and traced each square from that.  I didn’t want big paint tape lines for my grout… I wanted skinny lines. 
HOWEVER…
lessoned learned…
duh Kendra…
Don’t put down all the grout lines before painting the tile… 
(which I mainly did for a visual… trying to envision how it would look tiled out).
It just ends up being DOUBLE WORK since I had to sponge over most of them!
So don’t do that…OK?

Faux Tile Front Porch(c)

OK!
Continuing on…
I sponged out my colors with sea sponges.

sea sponge

This process started taking way too long because the bare concrete was soaking up the stain like crazy!
So… a couple of days later… I found an old sponge faux roller I had never used and decided to roll out several layers of paint over the rest of the porch.
Then I went back over that with my sea sponges for an individual tile affect.

Faux Sponge Roller

As I went along…
(this whole thing was fly by the seat of my pants kind of thing)…

Faux Tile Front Porch (d) 
  Faux Tile Front Porch (e)

(All the red paint splotches in the photo was left over paint at the end of the day and I wanted to use the rest of it so… I sponged it on each remaining tile.)
I decided to do an inlay of faux tiles (like a rug) from the stairs to the front door.
Hubby traced out a rectangle and a border
and

Faux Tile Front Porch (f)

patched the crack I showed you in the first post.
This time… I went ahead and sponged the color in first without all the grout lines… getting smarter here *ahem*… while keeping the border on the lighter side of my colors.

Faux Tile (h)

Then I had to decide what design to use on the faux inlay rug.
Again… flying by the seat of my pants…

Stencil Faux Tile Front Porch

I “shopped” my house for some metal décor and used them as templates.  I just placed them out and traced in and around them.

Faux Tile (i)

I had to tweak here and there with the design but they worked well for templates!
We finally went back and re-grouted the whole porch with my stain/paint and finished grouting the inlay.
NOTE on the technique:
The tiles again were sponged with the colors I chose (most of it sponged wet on wet but also wet on dry).  I also added some tinting from my acrylic paints in some of the stain to get darker variations.   
Then, I went back and added (using a paint brush) the marble/stone type veins with darker colors.  I painted them out and smudged them up some to blend back in with the tile.  That made them look more realistic and made the tiles “pop”.
We haven’t sealed it yet… but will do so soon.

Here is the final faux tiled porch…

Faux Tile Front Porch (c)
 
And here is the faux tile inlay/rug leading to the door…


My hubby wanted me to paint his portrait in the center… LOL!
He is such a jokester!

Faux Tile Front Porch (b)

I appreciate him finishing the grout lines for me… he did a fantastic job!

Faux Tile Front Porch (a)

So…
if I have any advice for DIY staining and or faux tiling…
(note: I am not a professional concrete stainer, painter or faux tiler)
it would be…
  1. Know if you are dealing with sealed or bare concrete… research it online (like I did) and figure out the products you would need for the type of concrete you have!
  2. Choose color(s) wisely… and only spray on a small portion of the area you are working on (unlike I did)… and know that (in my case) the color dried the same as the color sprayed on.
  3. Ask for sample sizes or quart sizes to test an area (my Lowes only sold the stain in gallon size) but always ask.
  4. Ask the paint guy/lady beforehand what happens if you don’t like the color it produces… can you return it or exchange it or tint it differently?  I kind of got two different answers on the tinting thing.
  5. The whole spray thing did not work out for me (it splattered and did not spread well)… rolling it with a faux sponge roller seemed to be the best solution all the way around.  With the faux roller… you get that variation in paint and you can control the liquidy stain much better with it. 
  6. As far as faux tiling… sponge it out first before grouting unless your using painters tape…  there are some videos online you can watch of people faux tiling.
  7. Have plenty of ice packs on hand for backaches or knee aches if you have a large area to hand sponge (thankfully, my neighbor brought me some).
  8. Have some padding for your knees… I used an old mat.
  9. If it is a large area… either get some help or do it in stages… taking a break now and then.  I was a few days on and a few days off (with ice of course)!
  10. Take your time and have fun with it!
Ok…
Part three of my Southern Porch coming soon!
Thanks for stopping by!

33 comments:

  1. I my goodness! I love love love this! I need to get my thinking cap on and see what I can do for our porch. Girl, you are so talented!!

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    1. Thanks Sheba!! It was a BIG job... but somebody had to do it!! LOL! It's amazing how paint can change something plain into something totally different! :)

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  2. Kendra!!!!!!!!! One word..... OUTSTANDING!

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  3. I thought that WAS Ray in the center! Silly me!

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  4. ok, now I'll reply in mere words how FANTASTIC THIS IS!!!!!!!!!!!

    OHMYGOODNESSOFALLTHEUNIVERSEINCREATIVENESSTHATABOUNDSFROMONEHUMANBEING!!!!!

    SERIOUSLY, KENDRA! ????? I mean, seriously one of the most gorgeous creations I have EVER seen!!!

    And the Oscar goes to:
    Kendra Joyner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    XO
    ~K

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    1. Thanks Kol!!!! It was alot of hard work... especially when you don't know what you're doing! LOL!

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  5. Kendra! That is amazing! The faux rug is really pretty. Did you paint all the grout lines free hand or tape? Really amazing!

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    1. Thanks Anita! Traced a vinyl tile... and also used a chalk line on part of it.

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  6. Impressive. Very impressive. Great job!

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  7. HO LY CRAP! Ingenious, beautiful, amazing!! It looks so fantastic.

    Thanks for sharing this!

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    1. Thank you Anne! It's amazing what a "little" paint can do!

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  8. Kendra, you did an amazing job with the faux tiling! The detail is amazing, the decorative scrolling "wrought iron" embellishments are really, really well done. It actually looks like real tile and like it would cost a mint to have those kinds of detail and accents added. You should be very proud of your work, all the time and pain was worth it!

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    1. Thank you so much... that makes me feel so good to hear that!

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  9. What beautiful results! Nice to know experience isn't always necessary for success!

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  10. (jaw dropped) Wow! Great job and I really love the faux rug effect - your hubby needs to give you a massive neck rub!

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    1. Larissa... totally agree about the neck rub...lol!! Thank you so much!

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  11. This is really, really awesome! I cannot believe the patience it would've taken (at least for me) to finish it out. I love it. Gorgeous job! ~ Dori ~

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    1. Thanks Dori! It wasn't so bad when I decided to take a break... a few days on and a few days off... and when hubby stepped in to help with the lines and some sponging... it made it so much easier! :)

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  12. Wow! You did an amazing job. So beautiful and creative!

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  13. OK, I started with your post with the finished porch with furniture on it and I would have sworn you put out a chunk of change to have a professional lay some awesome tile with fabulous insets - in front of your door is amazing!!! Wow, you did an incredible job!!! Good thing you took lots of pictures because it is difficult to believe that you just painted concrete...zowie!!!

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    1. Thank you Farm Quilter! It was a job indeed...LOL! Thank you for your sweet comment on it... so glad to hear that it looks real!! :)

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  14. Kendra beautiful work! I actually used tint on my porch as well (just did a solid color with contrasting border color) and over the few years it has been done, I've found that the tint is coming off in spots where the rain constantly hits the porch. However I did not seal the darn thing...I was wondering if you sealed your faux tiles and how it's holding up to the weather. Cuz if I repaint it I don't want to have to do it again. LOL! (Yeah...but I probably will.) Love your blog site!

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    1. Thanks again Kris! I have not sealed the porch yet... the hubs and I couldn't make up our minds on whether to go with gloss or a flat seal...lol! So we have put it off. We only catch a small amount of rain on the porch and it does puddle on top (which is good) because the stain had some sealer in it already. yeah... I'm hoping that not sealing it will be alright for awhile since the porch had never been sealed before... the existing concrete really soaked the stain up well. But I think eventually we will apply sealer... just not sure when. Sorry I couldn't help you with that info! Thanks for stopping by!! :)

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  15. You did an excellent job,and have given me some ideas ;)

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    1. Oh yeah Kendra what did use to trace with?

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    2. Oh yeah Kendra what did use to trace with?

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    3. Katava... sorry... just seeing this!! I'm not as active on the blog anymore. I used those metal decor pieces in the photo above to trace the designs with and chalk tape to paint grout lines! Hope that helps!

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  16. You did an excellent job,and have given me some ideas ;)

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  17. Kendra,
    So beautiful! How many different colors of paint did you use to get the effect we see here in the tiles?

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    1. Thank you! 3 cans of different stain colors... and I added a little black, brown and red acrylic to the stain to darken some of it.

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Thank you for visiting Creative Ambitions! I love reading your comments... so please comment away!!

Kendra