Waltner Wood & Wall Designs

Custom Furniture & Faux Finishing

FAQs

Faux Finishing:

 

Q: Can’t I do faux finishing myself?  Why should I pay someone to do it for me?

A:         Successful faux finishing requires two things:  knowledge and practice.  Some of the knowledge you can gain yourself, through books or watching TV programs.  But unfortunately, these two “instructors” aren’t interactive...if you’re doing the technique wrong, they won’t spot it and correct you.  There’s simply no substitute for an actual teacher.  But the biggest obstacle for amateur faux finishers is the lack of practice.  In order to eliminate start-and-stop lines as well as other problems, you have to practice over and over again.  And most amateurs simply don’t have the time for this.  The many hours of professional training and practice that Keri has put into her craft will guarantee a result you will love.  Many of our clients have tried faux finishing themselves, are unhappy with the results, and that is why they come to us.

 

Q: Do you offer classes in faux finishing?

A:         Yes.  We offer private and semi-private lessons where you can learn exactly the finishes you are interested at a time that is convenient for you.  And having the instructor’s undivided attention means you will learn it faster and more thoroughly.

 

Q: Isn’t faux finishing terribly expensive?

R: Well, it’s certainly more expensive than having a painting contractor paint your walls with a solid color.  But that’s because faux finishing takes more skill and time, so it should cost more.  The simplest of our faux finishes runs $5.50/square foot up to $14/square foot for the most expensive of our Venetian Plasters.

 

Q: How can you paint surfaces like a tile backsplash or a vinyl floor?  Won’t the paint come off with wear?

R: The key to painting less-common surfaces is really the primer.  We always use a primer that is made for the surface being painted.  Fortunately today there are a variety of products to use.  We often use bonding primer, which has more of the chemicals in it that stick to glossy surfaces, for these jobs.  Of course, we always clean the surfaces thoroughly first.  The final step in any of these finishes is a sealer.  When you have surfaces like a tile backsplash that are subject to grease, you want to be able to scrub them.  That’s why we apply numerous coats of clear polyurethane.  On floors, we apply even more coats.  We’ve been back to visit homes where we painted tile or cabinetry or floors three years ago, and the finish still looks like new.  We’ve had no complaints about these finishes not holding up over time.

 

Q: How do I know that the faux finisher I’m hiring will do a good job for me?

A:         First of all, make sure the person has had professional training.  Ask where they went to faux finishing school.  Unfortunately there are many amateurs out there masquerading as professionals.  Second, ask to see finished installations they have done, and/or speak to former clients.  Clients who are happy with their faux finish will not hesitate to be a reference.  Thirdly, make sure you see a large (at least 18”x18”) sample board of the finish going up on your walls with exactly the technique and exactly the colors you want.  Don’t let them start unless it’s exactly what you want!  And lastly, does the faux finisher act like a businessperson?  i.e.  Do you receive a professional-looking written bid, do you sign a contract, are all the terms for payment clearly spelled out?  Faux finishers are artists, yes, but when you’re involved in a financial transaction with them, they need to know the business end of things as well.

 

 

Custom-made Furniture

 

Q:         Do you build your furniture from already-existing plans?

A:         We take the clients’ ideas and create our own design.  We take into consideration the clients’ wishes as far as type of wood, dimensions, style, etc.  Everything is one-of-a-kind.  Of course, if the client already has a plan for a piece, we will base our design on that plan, but it probably won’t be exactly the same. 

 

Q: Isn’t custom-made furniture a lot more expensive than ready-made pieces from a furniture store?

A:         We need to caution you against comparing apples and oranges.  There are very few, if any, furniture stores out there that carry the quality of furniture that we make.  Jerome’s favorite analogy is that of a McDonald’s hamburger and a quality steak.  Yes, they are both beef, but the resemblance ends there….no one would mistake one for another and you wouldn’t expect to pay the same either.  For the quality we provide, we are reasonably priced.  We can’t match the prices of mass-produced pieces, but they can’t match our quality!

 

Q: What is the advantage of custom-built furniture?

A:         You get what you want, both in terms of size and style because we are not bound by the limitations of commercial furniture producers.  And what are these limitations?  Well, in “The Woodworker’s Guide to Furniture Design,” there are two graphs representing the average height of the U.S. population, based on age and gender.  According to these figures, approximately 75% of the female population is between 5’ 4” and 5’ 8” tall, and approximately 70% of the male population is between 5’ 8” and 6’ 0” tall.  Therefore, if you are mass-producing furniture, you want to make sure that your design will be comfortable for people who fall within those parameters.  The problem is that 25% of women and 30% of men are either taller or shorter, and will thus have to settle for something that really doesn’t work for their body type.  We found this out when looking for a changing table for our first child.  They were all designed for someone around 5’8” tall.  We are both around 6’0” tall, and found all the commercially-made tables were uncomfortable to work at.  If you’ve ever tried to wrestle a diaper onto a squirming infant, you appreciate the need for comfort. 

 

             The other thing you want to do if mass-producing furniture is make sure that you use popular woods and designs, which means that most of what you do will be made of oak and look like everything else out there.  If your furniture is custom-made, it will be of the size, design, and material that best suits your needs and tastes.  

 

Q: What’s wrong with oak?

A:         We have done a number of pieces in oak, and it is attractive on several levels.  It has a good appearance, is strong, cheap, and works nicely.  We do have two caveats regarding oak, though.  First, oak doesn’t have the greatest dimensional stability.  A six foot long oak tabletop will expand and contract as much as an inch and a half depending on changes in temperature and humidity.  This can create two problems:  If the piece is meant to fit into a certain space, you need to take care that the movement of the wood will not create a gap between the wall and the piece, or that the piece will not poke a hole in the wall.  (If you don’t believe that wood could actually damage a wall, consider that granite quarries used to cut slabs of granite by drilling holes, inserting wooden pegs,  and pouring water onto the pegs.  The wood would expand, and the solid granite would break.)  Second, one of the things we like to do is use several different kinds of wood in one piece.  Oak doesn’t work very well in this sort of application because the movement will create cracks between the different types of wood.  However, if you want oak, we can certainly accommodate you, and maybe offer a few other options within oak, such as using white oak instead of the standard red oak, or using quartersawn oak.  (Quartersawn  oak is simply oak that is milled in a different manner than regular, plainsawn oak.)

 

Q: But everything I have is oak.  Wouldn’t something else look out of place?

A:         Then you're not alone.  Approximately 80% of all homes built today are finished in oak, because it is both attractive and cheap.  However, just  because you currently have one type of wood in your home does not mean you can only have that one type.  I remember watching a home design program a few months ago.  While they were furnishing a room, they intentionally tried to mix in several different kinds of wood.  The reason was that they didn’t want the room to look as if it had just been newly designed.  Adding several different types of wood made it look as if the room had been drawn together over the years, rather than a few weeks.  So, why not at least consider using something other than what you have?  However, if you still want a wood that is comparable in appearance to oak, but has greater dimensional stability, take a look at ash. 

 

Q: What other options are there besides oak?

A:         What did you have in mind?  Two of my favorites are ash, which has a grain pattern that is similar to oak, and pecan.  Both of these woods are only slightly more expensive than oak, have better dimensional stability, and are actually harder than oak.  Walnut and cherry are very attractive, albeit more expensive.  Variations of maple, such as tiger-tail and birds eye, can have perhaps the most stunning visual appearance of any domestic hardwood, however it is also more expensive, and not as dimensionally stable as ash or pecan.  We also like to use exotic hardwoods for accents.  Some of our favorites are Goncalo Alves, Padauk, Lacewood, and Bloodwood.  Another interesting wood that is just now becoming popular is Lyptus®, a fast-growing hybrid of eucalyptus that has an appearance comparable to cherry and mahogany.

 

Q: You talk about being environmentally friendly, but aren’t these exotic woods endangered? 

A:         There are a number of tree species that are endangered, but in general these species are not even available to the professional woodworker.  The exotic species we use are not endangered; some are rare, and therefore more expensive.  With these rarer woods, there are forests that are being managed responsibly, but, unfortunately, there are a number of areas where forests are not being managed responsibly.  However, the cause of the majority of deforestation is not so much harvesting of lumber for use, but clear-cutting for urban sprawl or for agriculture which does not value the trees being cut.   We believe that seeing the wondrous value of nature (in this case, as expressed in wood), will perhaps encourage us all to take more of a role in creating a sustainable environment.  Both the Nature Conservancy and the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) track the state of these species, look at how forests are being managed, and try to encourage ecologically sound practices.  For more information, you can contact the ITTO at www.itto.or.jp or the Nature Conservancy at www.nature.org