Color Counseling

The Mediterranean Job

An award-winning paint makeover takes a home back to its Mediterranean roots.

Photograph courtesy of Benchmark Painting & Carpentry

The classical stucco home on Bradley Lane is not what it used to be. First built in 1896 across one third of an acre, the 3,300-square-foot home lies in the affluent Washington, D.C. suburb of Chevy Chase. When the Buggs moved into the house in the 1970s, it was white and the windows were framed by black shutters. Finding those colors less than fitting for the style of the home, the owners began a long series of attempts to repaint the property.

“Over the 30 years we lived here, we have painted the house half a dozen times,” Carol Bugg explains. They tried a variety of colors and paint styles during that time, but nothing ever felt quite right. Finally, the Buggs turned to Benchmark Painting & Carpentry.

“Most recently, I worked with faux painter Frederico Roman,” Carol says, “and now the exterior truly reflects the colors associated with the Mediterranean look of our beloved home.”

The Coloring on the Wall

Roman and his team had to address several major challenges with the home once they took on the job. Chief among these was the condition of the home’s stucco shell. While the home’s structure itself had not suffered, many different coats of paint had damaged the appearance.

Roman knew they couldn’t redo the stucco surface from scratch, but they still needed to bring it back to life. The first step was to decide the colors that would go into reinventing the faÁade. The owners knew that they wanted something similar to the colors that were already in place, but something about the current shade felt wrong.

Suggesting a multi-tone, faux paint job to the Buggs, Roman explained it might present the texture in a better light than a repeat of the monotone jobs they had tried in the past.

When the owners agreed, Roman decided that the best way to refresh the texture was to use a Tuscany glazing technique. To do this, a base color, pink, was chosen, along with four accent colorsópink-peach, orange-peach, cream, and turquoise. Once chosen, all of the colors were applied simultaneously to achieve the desired effect. The finished wall bore a stylishly faded color, giving it an antiquated appearance despite the fresh coat of paint. It was exactly what the Buggs wanted.

With the stucco wall refinished and refreshed, the classically designed home finally began to resemble its Mediterranean predecessors.

Disappearing Details

Another challenge Roman and his team faced came from the architectural details that lined the house. The portico, columns, and arches had all vanished during previous paint jobs, blending in because of the previous monotone paint applications.

Making the solution doubly difficult was the fact that these architectural details are usually made of stone on a true Mediterranean villa, but here they are only a decorative construct of the stucco faÁade. Roman wanted to achieve an authentic feel for the homeowners, so he elected to use a trompe l’oeil faux finish on the features to imitate the stone. To make the look even more genuine, these architectural elements were visually broken into blocks measured as a stonecutter would have measured them in the era the homeowners wished to emulate.

To finish the illusion, masonry lines were painted in shadow along the measured “blocks” to lend the appearance of sturdy stone bricks supporting the structure. Even the arches were sectioned off and centered on a faux keystone to perfect the image.

Doorway to Heaven

The stunning new entrance could not abide the faded, damaged wood of the front door, so Roman set to work on it, as well.

Replacing the door was not an option, but it could be repaired and primed. Weather had taken its toll, especially near the bottom. After the wood was restored, the appearance of the door needed some simple refinements. Each door had two panels, so Roman first added relief molding to the panels to add more depth. Next, Roman turned back to a trompe l’oeil technique, using careful brush strokes to “install” faux panels into the door with enhanced shadow and texture. Finally, he used wood graining techniques to perfectly mimic the lines and knots of a glossy hardwood.

Finishing Touches

The windows and shutters posed the slightest challenge from a creative standpoint.

Previously, the shutters and windows were painted in a monotone color scheme like the rest of the house. Adding a little spice came easy for Roman and his team. Choosing to repaint the window frames in a slight off-white, they kept the turquoise for the windows, repainting them in rich, fresh paint of the existing color. The result, though, was that the off-white windows shone against the dark shutters, giving them striking depth that had not been there before.

When the team from Benchmark hung up their paintbrushes, they had succeeded in painting a Mediterranean masterpiece on what had been a plain, stucco canvas.

The work delighted and impressed the homeowners, and many others, too. For the project, Benchmark Painting & Carpentry received the 2007 Picture It Painted Professionally Award in the Faux Residential category by the Painting and Decorating Contractors of America.

óIan Black