Faux est au bon d'être Vrai

Bon jour! You guys must be wondering what's up with me and the French Connection (nice movie BTW). It so turns out that I took a beginner level French class last year and picked up a few words only as much as a yr old would pick up. It was extremely hilarious to see 26 and 40 yr old people struggling to complete a sentence in class. I realized learning a language was so much easier as a child than it is now. However the language always fascinated me, Paris is among the list of cities I would love to visit and my advisor in school who I am in complete awe of and admire is French. Nevertheless that is not what triggered the French in me but it was this faux (false in French)paint technique that Shree and I did recently that inspired me to share my experience.

Our dig!!!

Shree and I moved to our first home in Sammamish in November 2005. We fell in love with the floor plan of our house the moment we saw it. It was that Sunday evening we saw the house for the first time and it turned out to be the same day we ended up putting an offer and buying it. A huge milestone in our lives and to date makes me nostalgic.

The one thing we knew even before we got our dig was that it needed a paint job sooner or later. We had a couple of dry walls that needed to be patched and our home needed a face lift as it was not touched up since its birth in 1988. So began our paint saga....

The Paint Saga...

I started reading through articles, magazines, surfing the web for Web sites related to choosing colors and trying them out on computer model homes just to get an idea of how this works. Sherwin Williams and Behr both have really cool software that helps you choose colors of the same family, accents and contrasts and try them on model homes. There are supposedly free software available that let you upload your own own home pictures. I found a few but never really went that far. However I really liked the software on the Behr website as it was user friendly and intuitive. However I strongly recommend you get sample colors from SW or Behr and try them out on the walls. The colors look completely different based on texture, light and angles.

One thing we found out was that if you like a color from Behr (colors from Home Depot) you can ask Sherwin Williams to create them from you. You just need to take the color code from Behr to a Sherwin Williams store and they use their software to create this formula (that reminds me of Mr India) and match the color from Behr. This seems to be a pretty common practice in the paint business. We actually did that for "Sandstone Cove" from Behr that we really liked. We are using this color for our formal living room.

After much thought process we decided that we were going to paint just one wall by ourselves and get the rest of our lower floor painted from professionals. Out thinking behind this decision - 1) It would take too much time. 2) Since we talking only weekends it would mean a lot of mess in our home/lives for a lot of days 2) High ceilings and all those angles that our walls have were a challenge 4) There was a very good chance we could screw it up :-). Since we got a reasonable quote for our lower floor it was a justifiable strech for us in terms of the time it would save us.

We took the logical decision of painting that one wall in our family room before we called the professionals so that even if we screw up we could ask them to paint over it. Well for that one wall we nailed down colorwashing which is a type of faux finish. I wanted to do something more than just paint the wall. So I started looking through various paint techniques and chose colorwashing because it required beginner to intermediate level of skill. Also since the technique is receptive to a margin of error even if you mess it up at some places it gels with the overall effect.

On our first trip to Sherwin Williams store in Kirkland we saw colorwashing being used on the walls in the store. We really liked the combination of colors they had used and decided to try them out. Colorwashing involves choosing two colors a base color (which is usually lighter) and a top color (darker). The idea being choosing the color you would like to see more of as the base color. Some places they recommend using three colors (which according to me is 3 times multiplied by your hours spent on choosing the colors and irritation if the effect does not work out the way you want it to be).

For us the biggest challenge was choosing the combination of base and top color was trying to match it with our wooden trim, hardwood floors, and red bricks on our fireplace. Basically we wanted something that would not overshawdow what is already so beautiful but infact enhance our family room. We turned lucky and thanks to our failry decent aesthetic senses that we nailed the combination and the colorwashing effect we desired after trying a couple of patches and combinations. All this drama went on for two weeks after our first visit to SW. Ambitious Amber (base color) and Tatami Tan (Top color) are the final colors we used.

The Faux Days

We painted the entire wall, base and top color, in three days. However this is easily doable in two days. We started off with two coats of the base color. You have to let the base color completely dry off before you start the top color. For the top color we used a 10:1 combination of glaze:color. During your practice patches it helps to try different combinations of glaze to color to see how dark or light you want the top color to be. The basic idea of color washing is that the base color should show while you do strokes of top color. The strokes of the top color need to be "random yet balanced".

This is a very crucial phrase one needs to imbibe before they start off. The idea being do random strokes in a 3" X 3" not applying too much pressure (else brush strokes will have skid marks). Once the random strokes are done in that section immediately use a kitchen towel or sponge to absorb the excess glaze so that the paint is consistent overall. Shree did the strokes and then I started sponging once a section was done.

The key thing to remember here is that work in 3" X 3" sections of the wall and then continue this until the entire wall is done. The storkes though random have to be balanced across those sections and the sponging effect has to be consistent. So in theory we ended up doing the sponging effect except we did not use a sponge but a combination of brush strokes and kitchen towel (Well like the The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would say we had our towel so we were fine even if there were crisis:-)).

Completing a Full Circle

Coming back to the where I started...Something that is so false (faux) can seem to be so true (Vria). It all started off with a thought, a desire to make it happen and now that we have it for real it all seems to too good to be true i.e. est au bon d'être Vrai. But isn't that what life is all about...

BollyFood

Rang De Basanti

Let's just say that I absolutely love watching movies, discussing with them friends catching up on the latest and more. Fortunately I have friends who listen to me and are convinced that if ever Karan Johar were to retire from Koffee with Karan I could easily take over the show :-). So, I watched two movies last week Capote and Rang De Basanti and I highly recommend both.

Capote is a brilliant film. "Capote" the movie is based on Gerald Clarke's book Capote: A Biography but actually narates the story of In Cold Blood a book written by Capote. So its very interesting - Its based on a book but narrates a story from a different book. When I watched Ray I thought that Jamie Fox did a great job of getting into the character because I had seen Ray's performances on TV. But even though I have never seen Capote Philip Hoffam makes you believe that he is what Capote would be. You have to see to believe it. Also we saw the movie at Big Picture in Redmond Town Center a place worth checking out.

Later on Friday I watched Rang De Basanti with a bunch of friends. I got hooked to the soundtrack of the movie when I visited India in Dec and was really looking forward to watching it ever since and before that. The songs I particularly like: Luka Chupi, Rang De Basanti, Paatshala and Roobaroo. So yes I loved the movie. Its really funny, has good performances, draws amazing parallels among the characters, and conveys the point it intends to. While Rang De uses a radical viewpoint (killing the Defence Minister) to get its point across, Sarfarosh on the other showed a man getting into the system and bringing about a change. You can agree with either viewpoint but both of them charge you up and send out a hopeful message. Interestingly both Sarfarosh and Rang De have Aamir Khan and according to this article these were the only two movies he liked in the last 10 years.

So one of my friends had a good question and that was what does "Rang De Basanti" truly mean and why is it the title of the movie? That's true I never figured that one out ..but I had heard the phrase Rang De Basanti Chola from the film Bhagat Singh. The song is supposed to be composed and sung by Bhagat Singh) but there seems to be debate whether that is infact true. Given that here is an interpretation I think sounds appropriate and goes with the theme of the movie (I don't claim it to be perfect).

Basant is a season when mustard plants turn yellowish. Yellow (basant) represents bliss/happiness/death. Likewise Black: Colour of disenchantment (Ross). Blue: of Josh (anger)...so basanti chola is the dress of death that will give bliss.