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On this house I am planning to
do something that I have not seen done on any other homes in the States.
In the manner of the lovely homes on the Lido in Venice, Italy, I am
preparing to paint a colorful border, or frieze, on the top row of blocks
that go just under the cornice, all the way around the exterior of the
house. I took some photos of some of the Italian homes on the Lido when I
was there last. I only saw this effect on the Lido, altho it might
be popular elsewhere.
Instead of using paint or
tiles, I am planning to use concrete acid stain directly on my DAC-ART
blocks.
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The Inspiration !
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Above are photos of one house in Italy. One
shows a close-up of the painted frieze just under the eave of the tile
roof. |
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Another home in Italy w/ a painted frieze
similar in size to what we hope top have. |
This European home (above) has a wide
polychrome frieze. |
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These last two photos of homes were taken in
Monte Carlo and one in St. Tropez. Seems that the multi-color frieze
style is popular in beach-y locations. |
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So hopefully, these snap shots of colorful
exterior home decoration will give you an idea of the effect we hope to
get with our concrete acid stains used directly on our dry stack
blocks. |
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I am sketching out a
Florentine type scroll design on some old vellum paper i have had since
my days as a draftsman. I uses a dinner plate (see in left photo) to
make the basic round guidelines. For the series of circles that I wanted
on the top and bottom border, I printed out some precise circles on the
computer. I am doing the drawing very large because this row of blocks
where it goes will be way up high. I want to fill most of the height of
the block w/ design.
I did the old-fashioned
thing of rubbing a soft leaded pencil on the back side of my sketch on
vellum to make it work like carbon paper. I had some screaming green
poster board on hand from another project so I put my sketch on top and
traced over my lines to leave the marks on the neon green poster
board.
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Using the small size
el-cheap-o utility knife, I cut slits thru the poster board to use as a
stencil on my blocks. I figured out how to use two sheets and cut one
end in a manner that allows me to easily line it up with the correct
spacing. I also cut some optional designs to use as center motifs in the
alternating swirls.
Today in the sunshine, I
went out and laid the poster stencils on the blocks that New Stone Age
Builders had laid out in order for this project. I used a pencil to mark
my guide lines thru the poster, onto the blocks. I will freehand the
painted acid stain lines, but the pencil guide lines will keep me on
track and keep the spacing well balanced.
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I have started testing concrete acid stain
on my DAC-ART blocks in preparation for my big job of adding a
multi-color design around the entire top row of blocks that go just
under the cornice. I had two colors of SuperStone Concrete Acid
Stain left from the construction of the Phase I Guest House. I had the
colors SuperStone calls Aged Copper Green (actually blue) and Palmetto
Green. This product had been in my mini-storage for about 5 years and
looked OK, but I don't know if constant hot-cold cycles plus time caused
any change to occur. I took a small paintbrush and made these marks,
several coats, on a piece of scrap concrete block. The blue looks
kinda blue but the green is definitely not green. But it did leave a
permanent mark, so it could be useful.
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Meanwhile, I met a super guy who is a concrete acid
stain professional. His name is Chad Blackwell. Chad's biz is:
Xtreme Concrete Designs
251-269-4368
He is opening a new showroom in Foley on the road just west of 59 that
has the YMCA on it. Ck my Villa
Lagoon Partners page for the address and phone there.
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Chad was kind enuf to give me a small
sample of all of the colors of Kemiko Concrete Products that he
uses. I did a sample on a piece of broken block. You can see the
original look immediately after painting it (above) on the bare concrete
and then a day later (below left). I poured water on it and the photo on
right below shows how it looks wet. Keep in mind that these blocks
already have some color added into the body of the mix. Chad is going to
purchase some of the Kemiko Product in their green and blue colors for
me to try. We both think that this will be the first example of anyone
using concrete acid stain on the exterior of a residence to create a
polychrome frieze.
Many homes on the Lido, the beach
island resort of Venice have colorful friezes. I made photos of several
when I was there. I think this is a perfect effect for a water's edge
Italian style home here on Little Lagoon.
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When concrete acid stain was first applied
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Same Block the Next Day
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David Trull at Reynolds Ready
Mix has been very helpful. He is the local DIY concrete acid stain
supplier, 251-747-4238 or 1-800-239-3879. Call David for orders of Concrete
Acid Stain product.
Reynolds Ready Mix
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Same Block the Next Day Wet
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So I have been testing two kinds of
concrete acid stain on scraps of my blocks. I have two colors of old
product from when the guesthouse was originally built and some samples of
new Keniko product that local concrete artist, Chad Blackstone was kind
enuf to give me. As is evident on the block on right, the new Keniko blue
is much brighter than my old stuff that has been thru lots of hot-cold
cycles in a mini-storage. What is suppose to be green is in the rectangle
area between the words "RED" and "BLACK" on the block
on left. It just isn't looking very green at all. Today I mixed some of
both greens, the old Superstone green and the new Keniko green and
tomorrow we will be able to see if the results were any better.
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Here I drew marks around the places where I put the mix
of green stain from two different companies yesterday (multiple coats) and
as you can see, it doesn't look green. Oh well, I am communicating w/ the
folks at Keniko about maybe using a different product that they supply.
Stay tuned !
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I have started using my stencils to mark my
blocks with pencil lines to use as guide lines for the free hand painted
decorations. I use chunks of concrete to keep things from blowing around.
I am able to continue using the two stencils with the two extra center
elements to move along the length of the blocks which are laid end-to-end.
When I come to the end of a block, I skip about 1/2 inch of design to
allow for the average width of about 1/2 in of grout. You can see on lower
right the faint outlines in pencil on the block.
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Few Days Later...
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I need pretty sunny, warm days to be outside
doing this block coloring. Luckily we had a nice weekend, really breezy,
but sunny and warm. I finished drawing my basic shapes on Sat. March 2nd
and Dave Perry and I began applying color. I was making home-made stamps
from that thick foam that craft stores sell for kids activities and
mounting them on pieces of flip-flop soles to give them enuf thickness to
hold on to them and dip just the surface of the stamp in a shallow dish w/
the acid stain color solution in it. The foam is easy to cut with nice
edges, and the flip-flop backing doesn't have to be cut w/ tons of
precision. But, Dave had a better idea. He suggested I try using pieces of
knit fabric foam core drink insulator stuff, usually called cozies, or
huggers that fit around a canned drink. We got out a bunch of them and
found that some were thicker than others and some had lumpy printing on
them. Using the thickest and flattest printed ones, I cut out shapes of
leaves, flowers, etc to make into stamps.
This turned out to be a great idea. The
foam hugger material held just the right amount of liquid concrete stain
and didn't allow it to run out and make a mess.
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I used Gorilla Glue to attach the cut out
huggie foam to the backing piece cut from flip-flop sole. It didn't dissolve
the foam or the shoe foam like some solvent based glues do and it doesn't
dissolve in water or liquids I was using like white glue will do. But,
Gorilla Glue expands and makes a type of foam as it cures , so to keep
everything nice and flat (not lumpy from expanding foam) I placed
the freshly glued stamp on a glass table and put a book on top
overnight.
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Coloring the concrete...
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