Techniques
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9 Top Trends in the Garden for 2024
2024 is all about the outdoors: Being outside is in! Budgets. Makeovers on a budget are big news. Gone are the magnificent makeovers with the price tag to match. This year we are recycling, upcycling and doing it ourselves. And it’s all about the drama! Dramatic is in. There will be no shrinking violets in the garden this year, we are going to be big and bold. The takeaway advice for an on-trend garden in 2024 is make your backdrop a statement black or grey and your blooms bright. Orange and red flowers really pop against a dramatic backdrop. Decking: it’s still very much in but only if you give…
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5 Unique Wood Finishes To Use Around Your House
Wood furniture and wood trim elements are commonplace in homes all across the United States. Homeowners appreciate the aesthetic wooden elements can bring into a space. Wood furniture and accents are durable, natural, and often easy to rearrange for continual refreshes of any room in the house. But wood furniture also requires routine care and maintenance in order to consistently create the visual wow factor that homeowners seek. Adding a wood finish or stain is a common task for any homeowner looking to enhance the look and feel of their property. External wood structures, like a backyard deck, require refinishing on a more consistent basis. For example, experts suggest re-staining…
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PaperWall replicates Shou Sugi Ban for WallPaper
PaperWall, the newest addition to the Elton Group collection, is a wood fibre based paper surface that replicates the patterning, grain and texture of timber and other materials with impressive realism. PaperWall: A wallpaper that replicates the patterning, grain and texture of timber and other materials with unrivaled realism. Among the finishes are a wide range of oak looks – from pale oak to charcoal oak – a Shou Sugi Ban finish, corten steel and concrete. The innovative surface is achieved through a combination of high-definition printing and precision embossing, the alignment between natural grain and texture creating a surface almost indistinguishable from the real thing. PaperWall is sourced from well-managed,…
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Noir Sculptural Objects Create a Lyrical Effect
Call it the new noir. Black finishes are bringing sculptural furniture into focus as never before. In porcelain, bronze, walnut and other natural materials, well-designed objects are coming out of the shadows to shine in every room of the house. “There is something powerful about the serenity and mystery of these essential shapes,” says Belgian-born designer Pieter Maes, who works with a bronze foundry in Ghent, Belgium, on his organic, softly curving tables and stools. “I became obsessed with making simple, unfussy work that triggers something very old and dormant in people, no matter where or when someone comes from.” Blackening a surface is as old as fire itself, points…
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Shou Sugi Ban Industrial Chic Bathroom
Susie Davis calls the style of her powder room “Charles Dickens Meets Jack the Ripper.” It exudes an Industrial Revolution era vibe with a factory chic aesthetic. Lamenting that “vanities are stupid expensive,” she convinced her husband to help her build one. She found the plans online and they went to work. Davis, who claims that she used to be far more extroverted but now desires nothing more than to retreat to her garage — her girl cave — and watch DIY videos, found exactly the treatment she wanted in one such screening: Shou Sugi Ban. This Japanese technique of charring wood essentially encases the wood in a layer of carbon…
