How to Do a Faux Grass Cloth Painting on the Wall

Plain painted walls can be boring, while hanging wallpaper can be time-consuming and expensive. Customize your walls with your own style and design using faux finishing techniques. Faux finishing uses a glaze over painted walls to add a pattern or textured effect. Grass cloth is a finishing effect created by using a whisk broom through a glaze that has been applied over your wall. Creating this effect in a room can be done over two afternoons.

Flat or eggshell paint
3/8-inch-nap rollers
Roller frame
Paint tray
Drop cloth
Tape
2-inch angle brush
Faux glaze
Whisk broom
Rags

Instructions

- 1
  Prepare the room that you will be painting by protecting your surfaces. Tape off around the ceiling, moldings and trims, as well as any other objects that cannot be removed from the walls. Cover the floor and any furniture that is to remain in the room with plastic drop cloths.
- 2
  Roll on your base wall color. Distribute the paint evenly over the wall. Allow the first coat to dry, then come back with a second coat to create full depth of color and tone over the wall.
- 3
  Roll on your glaze coat after the paint has fully dried. Work in manageable strips of wall. As grass cloth is a vertical technique, an area 4 feet wide and the height of the wall is appropriate.
- 4
  Drag the whisk broom from the ceiling to the floor in one long stroke. Blot the broom off on a painter's rag, then move over slightly and repeat the technique.
- 5
  Continue to apply the faux technique throughout the rest of the room. Remove the tape and drop cloths when you have finished.

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