Ann Moore-Spencer

Faux Stone Coun­ter­tops

Be­cause of the hype from ca­ble tv, in­ter­net sources and mag­a­zines every­one seems to want gran­ite coun­ter­tops. Gran­ite slabs can be cost­ly and not every­one can af­ford the re­al thing. If you can­not af­ford a full coun­ter­top slab, con­sid­er tiles. Match the grout lines close­ly to the colour of the tile and you can al­most im­i­tate a full slab. Con­crete coun­ter­tops can al­so be fin­ished to look like gran­ite or mar­ble stone slab. This is not a job for a DIY­er, how­ev­er. If you have artis­tic flair, some craft and paint man­u­fac­tur­ers pro­vide paint kits that promise to con­vert lam­i­nate coun­ter­tops to gran­ite or mar­ble. In my opin­ion, you have to be re­al­ly good to make it look re­al.

Faux Floor­ing

Wood floors are al­so sought af­ter. Wood floors warm up the d&ea­cute;cor and give that high end look. Re­al wood planks are cost­ly to in­stall and main­tain. Faux wood is an op­tion. Some fin­ished ones are re­al­ly good and are dif­fi­cult to dif­fer­en­ti­ate from the re­al thing. Lam­i­nate floor­ing is made of syn­thet­ic ma­te­r­i­al and if well in­stalled and main­tained they can last 15 to 30 years. In T&T, most of our floors are con­crete. You would have greater suc­cess lay­ing lam­i­nate, rather than re­al wood, over con­crete. Al­ter­nate­ly, en­gi­neered wood has a ve­neer of re­al wood and can last 20 to 100 years. It is a very sus­tain­able op­tion and is great over con­crete and is more re­sis­tant to wear and mois­ture. This could very well be the case where the great pre­tender may be 'bet­ter'.

Faux Mould­ings

Re­al wood mould­ings can be im­prac­ti­cal or ex­pen­sive. Con­sid­er us­ing con­densed foam mould­ings. They are eas­i­er to work with, very light and less sus­cep­ti­ble to warp­ing or mois­ture dam­age. There is a wide se­lec­tion of de­signs and types of mould­ings avail­able.

Faux Wood Blinds

Hor­i­zon­tal wood blinds are an op­tion that many are us­ing late­ly. I see it as the go-to op­tion for many home own­ers who want to suc­cess­ful­ly mix hard and soft win­dow treat­ments. Wood blinds are warm and 'homey' and does not have the cold ster­ile look of oth­er op­tions. But again the cost may be pro­hib­i­tive or the en­vi­ron­ment un­friend­ly. Faux wood blinds are al­so bet­ter in high hu­mid­i­ty ar­eas such as baths and kitchens. A great pre­tender is prac­ti­cal­ly im­pos­si­ble to tell the dif­fer­ence.

Faux Wall­pa­per

Wall­pa­per is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a re­vival in in­te­ri­or decors. I am not tak­ing about the tacky op­tions from yes­ter­year. There are many ap­peal­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties avail­able. But wall­pa­per re­quires ex­pert in­stal­la­tion. Con­sid­er some to the dec­o­ra­tive wall sten­cils avail­able. This is a per­fect DIY project that can yield se­ri­ous dec­o­ra­tive eq­ui­ty.

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