Amity: thanks for the work to post info on faux painting! I really appreciate your comments--and those of the others with faux finish experience. I had hoped to give it a try on the basement stairwall today, but no can do. This is a "distracted day" and a "bad eyes" day* so I'm not up to the task of reading posts carefully let alone working on tiny details, but maybe by Sunday I can really concentrate on the directions for the technique and follow the links thoughtfully? Meanwhile, I'm gonna prime the metal doors in anticipation of a tan base coat, which will eliminate the "moby dicks" in the room until a final solution is chosen. Worldmom: Your situation indeed sounds much like ours. Your carpenter has a good idea and if he knows what he's doing, this is a great solution. Is your oak-faced metal door with chalkboard ready to photograph? Even if it's not mounted in room? Am eager to see edge details close up. (I had threatened to use chalkboard paint on metal door in earlier plan for the room, but the lobby has become more formal and there will be some large framed art pieces on walls also so don't want door to rival them. Have considered a mirror in the center panel, surrounded by oak frame like you're doing.) ____ Should anyone care why we're having a hard time deciding on doors, continue reading. We've got a pair of oak two-panel doors for the lobby closet bypass doors and will add a single matching oak two-panel on the top of basement stair in pocket door. These are Jeld-Wen from HD. DH feels that these compliment the "shaker" style of cabs and he just likes them. He bought them months ago so they're a given. There are actually two metal doors in lobby. The one to garage is solid, no trim, and that's the one seen from adjacent spaces including kitchen. The other leads out to front step and has built-in full-length glass with embedded blind and that can be see from dining room and deck. So, that means I've got a one-pane and a two-pane contradiction in the room already. There are 3 more doors to be purchased: two that lead to the dining room--one from kitchen and one from lobby--and one on new kitchen closet. We've anguished over the choice for the kitchen closet especially because for a while we couldn't find a louvered oak door that was affordable and that fit the pattern of the other doors. But...there's another wrinkle as well. In the dining room, we have one of the old Atrium doors (like French door but with one fixed and one swinging door) to deck. That's a pair of full-length glass doors. This style is more like the front door, if you're keeping score here. We've decided that the two doors into the dining room have to match that style, so unlike the two-panel ones nearby, we'll have two full-length matte glass doors on the routes to dining room, one a pocket door and one a hinged one. Plus, we've finally found a manufacturer that carries oak louvered doors in two-panel and one-panel styles, so we're dithering about whether to spend the money for them instead of the cheaper "hemlock" one in the Jeld-Wen catalog. The company with the new choices in oak louvered doors is Stallion doors. Louvers, matte glass, oak. Haven't finished comparison pricing all these doors, but the cost is steep. We couldn't possibly have afforded an oak firedoor as well. We're throwing out a plain oak hollow core pre-hung that's left over from old kitchen because it won't match anything else, so we're eating the cost of redundancy also. And, as I said, we donated the old oak firedoor before we knew we could have reused it. AARGH! [*Yes, I do have bad eyes days. Has to do with muscles of eye and close focus and prisms. I have 4 pairs of glasses and switch among them looking for a good match, but some days, sigh, nothing works. Distracted days are another matter. Nothing to do with physiology.]

I think it would probably look fine. However... Faux painting is an art form that takes quite a bit of skill to do properly - bad faux looks REALLY REALLY bad (and most amateur faux is really bad, I blame HGTV for suggesting that anyone with a gallon of glaze and a few hours to blow can produce a professional-looking result). Grain painting that looks truly realistic is particularly tricky, it is neither quick nor easy to do well. I strongly suggest that either you take some classes and take a good long time to practice before tackling this, or meet with some professionals. I am sure you would be able to find someone "willing to do it to my standards" and talented enough to give you a good result.

[Hi Bob. Thanks for the clarification. I'm more likely to listen to a professional painter's explanation of why Brand A paint is better than Brand X than I am to an explanation by a paid spokesman for Brand A, and the same thing goes when it comes to blinds. An independent voice with no vested interest in selling me something carries a lot more authority. Here's the cause of my misunderstanding: the link that you posted went straight to your blog's specific discussion of the real-vs-faux question & skipped the page--and I'm assuming there is such a page: if not, there ought to be--that explains that while you install blinds, that don't sell them, and that we can't order them from you. Maybe such a one-line disclaimer at the top of each secondary page would eliminate that uncertainty for people like me, who don't arrive via the main page of your blog, where that's probably all made clear. Please accept my apologies for the confusion, and my error in thinking that you were a manufacturers' rep. Actually, going by your comment today, it sounds like you & I are somewhat in a similar position, and that we offer similar sorts of service: that is, what we have to sell is not product, but expertise. Some decorators--including those shop-at-home people--offer "free" consultations, but that just means their actual costs (and, face it, none of us can afford to work for free) are hidden in jacked-up prices for the products they sell: in your case, blinds & curtains, in my case, those things as well as to-the-trade accent pieces & gussied-up throw pillows made out of discontinued fabric samples. I don't sell that stuff. All I've got to offer are my taste, my eye, my knowledge, my experience & my ability to put all the pieces together to help people create a good-looking room. Makes it much easier at inventory time. Likewise, it's probably easier for to to sell your expertise than it would be to always be dusting samples of different manufacturers' Venetian blinds. Best wishes for your own continued success. M.]

Glad I happened to check GW tonight! I dont have pics yet - I will try to take some tomorrow for you. I went with mostly paint (soft white no glaze or highlight), but I did the island and a hutch area in coffee cherry with a whiskey glaze. Im still happy I went with mostly white, but the stained finish is really nice - wish I could have found a place for more cabs with this finish. Its a rich brown and the glaze adds just a touch of dimension. Sorry Im not much help in making your choice, but depending on your color scheme, you wont be sorry with either. The soft white is really exactly what it sounds like - not too creamy, but not harsh at all. My contractor was impressed with the construction, and there were no problems with them upon arrival. Except the trash and spice pullouts dont have soft close. I was about to start a thread about this when I saw your post. My contractor said that those cabs usually dont. So thats something you should find out beforehand. It will still be a while before they are all installed, but so far, so good.