Creating a Tuscan-Style Patio – Part 2

So, I’m still working on my Tuscan style patio and my pillars look great. I started looking for some type of buffet table because my family has company over a lot and we spend an enormous amount of time outside. My goal was to find something that was old-world looking, would hold up in the heat and wind, was functional, and affordable. So I made a beautiful multi-purpose buffet that fits in with my Tuscan style perfectly. Plus, it cost me under a hundred dollars!

I went to a shop near here that sells what they take from demolished houses. There are just rows and rows of all ages and styles of doors, windows, door knobs. It’s paradise for those of us who use everything for anything. Anyway, I found three huge old doors that had been taken out of a house they had torn down. In the old days, there was nothing made on a home that didn’t have some kind of unique little decoration or embellishment.

One of the doors was going to be the top of my “table” so I wanted it to be the least beat up. One door would be in the front of my table so I wanted it to have the most carving and design on it. And, I was going to cut one door in half and use it for the sides of my table. I found three doors that would make a perfect buffet. They were big, heavy over-size outside doors from an old pre-1900 building. The one thing that you need to be sure of is that they are the same size otherwise your table is going to turn out cockeyed.

When I got them home I sanded them. Don’t use stain remover on the doors because you want them to retain that “old” looking quality. Don’t sand them all the way down to the wood either. The goal is just to get any gunk off of them and make the edges smooth. Next, I antiqued each door. I did this before I cut the one door in half because I wanted both sides of my table to match.

After the doors were dry, I used long black screws and screwed the front and sides together. The, I glued some black caps that look like the top of old wrought iron stakes over the screws. Some people that I know use wood glue to glue the pieces together before they screw them together, but I didn’t do that. I think it’s a matter of choice really.

Next I got some clear matte silicone adhesive and ran it around the edges of the table filling in the gaps so that when kool-aid gets spilled it won’t go down into the table. Then I mixed some stain in a matte polyurethane and painted the whole table.

The most expensive part of my project was the piece of plexiglass that I purchased and screwed onto the top of my table so that I have the great carving and engraving clearly visible, but I can still sit a glass on the table. Once I screwed the plexiglass on the table I ran a bead of matte silicone around the edge so there is no danger of leaking there.

I didn’t expect to be able to really put a lot of stuff under the table, but found that an apartment size refrigerator fit perfectly. Then, my friend decided that shelving on the other side would be great, and it was!

So, now I have a beautiful antique Tuscan Style buffet that fits on my patio perfectly! And, it was a one weekend job!

Creating a Tuscan Feel on Your Patio: The Pillars

I love trying new things so it occurred to me one day that my patio was pretty bland. I had the usual, a patio table, a few plants, etc. But it gets hot here and I was longing for a cool get-away where I could relax and feel like I was in a different place. That is when it occurred to me that using a Tuscan décor in my patio area may be something that I could do that wouldn’t be too expensive and would help me to escape.

I began with my patio cover. Like a lot of people, I have a wood patio cover. It was probably supposed to be an arbor in the “old” days, but has since been covered and is solely used to provide shade. I called a friend of mine who is a professional painter to see what my options were. His immediate suggestion, after hearing my idea, was to rip the sucker down and build something that would be more appropriate. But, I’m on a budget so I went with plan B.

What I notice when looking at a Tuscan style outdoor décor is that they use lots of rock, pillars, and heavy wood. Of course, the areas that this décor is used in allow for that kind of space usage and I don’t have that much space. So the question was how to create the “effect” of rock, pillars and heavy wood minus the actual space.

I started with the pillars. Like most people, my patio has four 4x4s’ that hold up the roof of my frame. They are ugly, painted white to match the rest of the patio frame and don’t show much promise in the “pillar” department. I knew that I didn’t want to tear them down and start over. I also knew that I couldn’t afford to replace them with really cool rock. So, I moseyed down to my local Home Supply store and started looking for some alternatives. When I go to my local home supply store the guys on the floor always cringe when they see me coming because they know that I’m going to either ask a question they have never heard of, or I’m going to buy a product to use for something that it was not intended. I look at redecorating as sort of an artistic outlet so unless a person sees the possibilities in a product; they are going to get annoyed with me pretty fast. So, I ask the yard guy about water resistant fake rock that will adhere to wood and explained that I was going to “create” a pillar. This was not a question he was prepared for. But, I did eventually find a great alternative.

You know that rock that is used on the front of new homes that is laid into the stucco and looks real? Well what I found is that you can buy it in different shapes and colors and here is how you make a pillar that won’t rot your wood.

1. Make sure that you get enough of the fake rock fit your whole pole. You also want to make sure that each rock fits flush to the wood. What I wound up doing was piecing the rock and numbering each piece so I could put them back easily.
2. Staple chicken wire all around your pole. This is going to hold your stucco. I’m not sure why this is important, the professional painter I asked told me it was.
3. Get regular stucco that they use on houses and put it on the pole over the chicken wire. Don’t wait for it to dry.
4. Put some stucco on each rock then “glue” it to the pole. There were a couple of places where I had to use duct tape to keep the rock to the pole until it dried.
5. After it is dry use grout or stucco in the crevices between the rocks. I used stucco and just added a little brown paint to get the aged effect that I wanted.

That was it. It was pretty easy actually, just time consuming. But, I’m well on the way to my Tuscan style patio and my pillars look great.

Painting Your Home-The Tuscan Style Extravaganza

When you decide to redecorate your home, or a major room in Tuscan-Style, you are embarking on an adventure. To really create the authenticity that you see when they whip out this style on the DIY channel, you have to include furniture, lighting, design and staging into your plan to create the perfect Tuscan-Style. For most of us the real fun starts with the painting. Today we’ll start talking about the paint, which will take two blogs so you know it’s not going to be that easy.

I love the look of those walls with the terra cotta faux finish that seem so effortlessly swept across the wall of a Tuscan-Style room. When my daughter and I saw the design team on a DIY’er channel put a beautiful textured faux finish on a wall and the host promised, “It’s so easy, and will look fab-u-lous when it is dry,” we decided this was the look for us. This was some years ago, and I’ve since learned that that phrase is the kiss of death in DIY TV talk.

My thought was that if the entire country of Italy managed to get the Tuscan-Style décor into their homes, it couldn’t be that hard. So I bought a book and dove in. Well, here are some tips for those of you who have read this far and still want to try it by yourselves.

1. Somewhere in your local community there is a marvelous painter, outside or in really doesn’t matter. Painters pride themselves on being masters at their craft and that’s the guy you want to find. This person will walk you through the entire process of mixing the texture, applying it, and be honest with you about how long it will take to dry. Take them a cup of coffee if you see them at a job site and they will chat with you about every detail of your coming adventure.
2. Your texture is available either pre-made, or dry. If you are on a budget and buy it dry, which I did, you will want to get the tool that is made to mix texture. If you don’t, which I didn’t, you are going to need to have several painting outfits because the one you usually use for “all” your painting is going to get ruined before you get the texture wet enough to use.
3. You can buy colored texture, but remember that once it is up, it’s a real pain to paint over and in some cases you will have to peel the texture off and repair your wall to repaint it when you decide to redecorate. If you just keep it the plain, off-white color that it comes in, you can at least paint over it when you decide that maybe bloody-brown isn’t close enough to the color terra cotta to make it work.
4. You texture will be the right consistency when it looks and feels like thick brownie mix. It won’t be runny, but you won’t be able to sculpt with it either. Remember the texture dries very fast if it is somewhere where you don’t want it to be so if you dribble it you will need to wipe it up very quickly. On the other hand, once it is on your wall, depending on it’s proximity to your air conditioning vent, it can take a couple of days to dry so you won’t want to lean on the wall.

In our next blog, The Tuscan-Style Extravaganza – Part II: Painting, we’ll talk about actually applying your texture to get the faux finish that will bring your Tuscan-Style room to life.

Tip #1: A DIY Project: Changing the Look of your Floor

Redecorating a room often only involves the furnishings, the paint and texture, curtains, etc. Rarely does it involve the floors and when it does, it is usually either taking carpet out or putting carpet in. There was a DIY project shown on the home show recently that took flooring to a whole new level. A friend called to tell me saying that she had seen this great new “process” to make a floor look like stone and since she was redecorating a room in a castle theme, she wanted help in creating the rock floor. According to the DIY program the simple process involved cleaning the wood floor then using contact paper that you painted inside to create the rock formations. There were also several different colors of latex paint involved to get the realistic effect of rock.

Yes, I should have called in a professional decorator and painter, to either do the job for me or tell me what a stupid idea it was. But, by the time we were done we had learned the technique and it really didn’t look that bad. If you want to try this technique and don’t want to call in professional help, here is how you can create an “almost” real rock wood floor.

Supplies you will need:

Contact Paper

Scissors

Paper towels or a sponge

Brown, White, Gray latex paint

Foam paint brushes, these can be different sizes

1. Clean the wood and get all the dirt off of it. After that you will need to use alcohol or some cleaner that will strip all of the moisture out of the wood.
2. Get several roles of contact paper and cut them into 12” squares. Cut out the middle of the paper in a squiggly, free-hand shape so that you have a framed hole.
3. Once you have enough of these cut out to cover your floor, you remove the contact paper and stick it to the floor.
4. When painting you want to use brown, white, and gray. If you use black it will be too dark.
5. Some rocks have dark spots in the middle some have dark around the outside and have light spots in the middle. How you paint your rocks is entirely up to you. Once you have all the colors on a “rock,” daub it with a paper towel or a sponge to get a mottled affect.

As far as the rocks go, that’s it, you repeat 50+ plus times until you have all of your rocks painted then wait a day for the paint to dry. After it is dry take the contact paper off the floor. Now you get to be artistic. You are going to paint shadows for your rocks in those wood areas that don’t have rocks on them. Once you have done that, let it dry.

After drying, you will probably not be too impressed with the result, yet. But, once you paint the entire surface with polyurethane and let that dry, then put a throw rug on it, it will start to look pretty good. Remember though, this is not a quick project, and it will only be useful as long as you keep your castle theme going in your decorated room.

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