Family Room work-over

A couple years ago the want for doing some home renovation on our ranch style house was just too over powering, I was craving the smell of fresh plaster and paint. Sitting in my comfy chair in the family room, reading a book I looked up and realized how much I absolutely hate fake wood paneling (all of the walls in the back half of our house are covered in it).



So I did the next logical thing; wait until the wife was out of the house and suckered my boys in to helping me rip (literal) the paneling off the walls. They were nailed, glued, stapled, screwed, and in one spot chewing-gummed in place. Needless to say the wall did not look not so pretty.

Note: the black lines were where the panels touched, leaving a small gap, so apparently the people responsible for the abomination spray painted vertical lines. The door visible in the far right is actually a pocket door that didn’t work right leading in to the master bedrooms’ bathroom. Why a door to the family room, I’ll never know. But it was definitely no longer in use.

When Jan go home, her reaction was less then thrilled, apparently we had just received some hefty medical bills and were in no position to do any home repairs. Ugg! With the paneling in pieces out back, it was defiantly not going back on. In time the wall got covered up with drawings from the two boys.

Skip forward. In September of 07’ my oldest wanted to have some of his friends over for his upcoming birthday and to spend the night. We did our best to spiffy up the house with no money, so the parents wouldn’t think we’re trash, but the family room was bugging me.

A dig thought the garage I found a box of still mostly wet Bedex (plaster) leftover from the bathroom overhaul from a few years back. I took the drawings off the wall (carefully) and plastered up. And drove down to the local Lowes hardware store to see if I could find some cheap paint.

At first I was just going to go white, but I would need primer (to seal the plaster) and a couple gallons of white, and even the cheapest stuff I could find would still be a total of $60 for the primer and paint.

I didn’t have $60. So semi depressed, I started wandering out of the paint section and almost bumped into the table of mismatch paint. Most of the cans were horrible reds, and purples and oranges (orange?). but there was one gallon of light gray for $5. Hey wait a minute I do have $5!

I got home and in a furry of sanding until 1:00 am I got the first coat of plaster sanded and laid a fresh coat on for sanding in the morning. Granted the party was still a few weeks off, but I could only work on it during the weekends.

Now around this time my two boys (and every kid in the world) had rediscovered Star Wars, and everything was Star Wars this, Star Wars that. So an idea struck me. I could use the gray paint and some of my airbrush paint and do a quick Star Wars theme for the party. I got the whole family helping me paint the wall, I even added some wood trim to break up the wall a little. (the wood came from some pallet packaging at work, it was getting tossed out.)

Once the walls were gray I added metal seams, rust, rivets a view window with the battle star visible in the distance. An R2 port was added and the pocket door became a laser blasted sliding doors. I believe the total for this quick job came up to $18 in materials when done. And my boys had the coolest Star Wars marathon/ birthday/ sleepover.

I cut this out of construction paper the basic design

Time went on, just like it always does. And tastes change, and I found my self not really enjoying the family room wall any more, just too bleak. I had just finished watching the last of the SG1 movies and was noticing that some of the ‘rock walls’ in the background of the show were just painted on over plaster. I thought, hey I can do that.

I masked off a small spot to make it look like the plaster had fallen off of a rock wall, but first I laid down a fresh coat of that lovely cheap gray paint before masking in the rock shapes. I used three different back tones of color for the rocks, yellow, green, and blue. Mind this is back tones, just a hint will end up showing through when finished.

Various shades of gray were applied, followed up with a transparent black for shadowing and white for highlights.

Once happy with the rocks the tape was bulled off and coloring and texture was added for the mortar between the rocks.

I was quite happy with the stone, but the strip of wood bothered me. So I figured I could make it look like wood again. I mixed up some colors and did a quick go at a maple ‘like’ grain and color.

Jan had found this print of Mucha that she really adored and wanted to hang somewhere. I offered over the “death star” as I never really liked how that turned out. But putting it on the wall it just didn’t look right.

We need gears and gauges! Yes more excuse to use the new my new airbrush (airbrush city) I spent a few weeks, designing the new look; incorporating the Mucha print into the center.

I still mean to get back and finish the gears up top and add some screening over the gears, and then there will be some boarder trim with LOTS of screws, but for now it’s good how it sits.

Note: I was not happy with the left panel, layout after I finished. Had to change that later.

Left over from the old wall, kinda hate to cover over the old R2 port, but it will happen soon.

Ah, that’s better, rivets and rusty plate.

The sliding door had to go, It no longer fit with the rest of the wall, so a quick sand.

Some fresh cheap gray paint. And let it sit over night. Before moving on.

Now the new theme was Steampunk, and what better to have a airship specialties office door, with the whole frosted glass and post box build right in.

First I laid out the size of the window, with masking tape and painted in a light gray line around the interior. This will be the window framing later. Once this paint was dry I used more tape to cover it. Once the window is done I’ll pull of the tape and add in the shadowing and details later.

I needed to show a light source from inside the room, so at center some white was added, swirling into a power blue and reaching into almost a black. This will be my basis for the light.

Next I took a small piece of construction paper and cut a wavy line. This was my template for quickly moving across the pain at 45 degree angles. I used more white closer to the center and transparent black colors nearer the edges. Some free handing was done to give some spots more emphasis, and to deepen the shadows around the edges.

The tape covering the window frame was removed and separation lines and riveting added with some basic shadowing effects.

I like to use tape for my layouts, If I don’t like the size when I step back, just pull the tape off and try again. Here I’m laying out the wording on the glass.

Moving on. Don’t you just love the catalogs that come in the mail, all that free masking material. So now for the mail/post box in the door. I started with a copper base paint. It’s a funny paint to shoot, as it’s directional. Meaning: if you shoot it at an angle, it will change color hue by looking at it in another angle. So carful on the intentions of viewing vs. airbrush angle.

I added back over the copper to give it that false brass look. Even with the black over top the copper paint still shines through.

A quick stencil of “post” was cut out and taped on. If this had been done for someone else or a paid job, I would of used Frisket and nicer lettering.

Some white highlights and some minor work with an actual paint brush, to make it ‘pop’ a little better, and then the masking tape comes off.

I added some weather staining around the window and post box and then stepped back. The door was missing something, just too plain.

Then the idea came to me: Lets add some wood ‘kick’ paneling below. So some quick measuring, tape and more catalogs cut up.

I mixed up a honey color and added some yellow highlights to the ‘wood’.

Some directional tones were added with a bright yellow.

It’s a little hard to see, but the piece of cardboard was used a my board size in laying out the lines with pencil.

Back to mixing up some colors. I use a variety of paints, mostly Createx colors, but I occasionally get into the cheaper .99c tube craft paint and thin it down with Golden’s airbrush medium thinner.

Using a piece of card stock and transparent black I work in the wood lines. Now I can’t be too clean on my edges, I need a worn weathered type look; like maybe some weather staining is creeping in between the boards.

Some of my plastic templates came in handy for making some of the wilder graining for the edging, much more knotted then the interior boards will be.

I had Jan snap some pictures of me while I worked. Yes I am left handed.

That black piece of card stock is all I needed for making the wave of lines that make up grain of wood. The movement with the airbrush is very quick and uneven to make the grain more natural.

Coloring is done, now for the shadows and highlights.

Using black over the knots will bring them into focus better. Now here is a little trick I figured out. Look a the knot placement across the inner boards, notice how they line up and no two are the same size. This gives the appearance (at least subconscious) that the boards were all planed from the same piece of wood and you are looking at the layers, albeit not in the correct order.

Well here is how the family room sits now, still not complete. Still too much deed space and leftovers the last wall, maybe summer before I get back to this, as I’ve got some car customizing fever currently, and this is a good stopping point.

Though I still don’t have a budget to renovate the family room yet. This is a fun project and I figure with the original $18 I spent I’m now up to $23 total in used materials. The tighter the restraints on cash, the more fun it can be for figuring out how do it anyway.

I’ve got a long article on the 62 falcon coming up, which is all about a low budget build and reusing as many recycled materials as possible and still come up with something hopefully cool.

Jan’s currently working on a new quilt in this corner. Beautiful isn’t it. I hope I get one someday. I’m thinking of build in book shelves with books above the trim line; all painted in of course!