Faux-bulous fakes add beauty, save money

An interior designer long familiar with my custom furniture recently contacted me asking for a picture of my sliding coffee table design, which he hoped to use in a client’s new home. He thought it would be the perfect complement for the great room, finished in a high-gloss, faux goatskin lacquer.

The design was approved by the client and I was looking forward to its execution because, to tell the truth, living and working in the design world these past few years has been mostly dedicated to the use of wood and only wood. It has been a long time since I’ve been asked for a faux lacquer finish of any kind, yet alone one that would imitate the characteristics and appearance of real leather.

There was a time when I did a great deal of this kind of work for clients and I didn’t realize how much I missed its beauty until I was in production for this table. Then it hit home, and I bemoaned the fact that faux painted furniture is now so rarely seen.

For those of you unfamiliar with the term “faux,” it’s pronounced like “foe” and is a French word that means false or fake. And there’s little doubt, that unless you’ve been living a life of solitude, devoid of any contact with the outside world, you surely must have seen it used in such phrases as faux pearls or even faux fur.

Naturally, it’s the goal when making any kind of faux object or material to create a product that will resemble the imitated item as closely as possible. Faux finishes are techniques used by decorative painters to recreate the look and feel of many types of natural materials, and so you can imagine how vital it is to find and use only highly qualified and talented artists for the job at hand. Happily, I’ve been blessed with several of these maestros during my career, including local artist Rico Mazzi, who I’ve worked with for a number of years and who was largely responsible for making my faux leather sliding table look so real.

I first began offering faux finishes as a means to an end, a way to help clients achieve the look of actual leather (goatskin) or marble without the high price of those materials. Interestingly, it was probably budget concerns that first motivated the Italian painters of the Renaissance to use faux marble and faux wood (“faux bois” in French) in order to cut construction costs on the grand cathedrals being built at that time. Artists of that day started to replicate natural materials that could fool the eye (“trompe l’oeil” in French) of all but the most sharp-eyed observers.

But, historically speaking, the attempt to mimic materials of the natural world had actually begun long before the Renaissance period. As far back as ancient Egypt, artists were already engaged in techniques like wood graining and the art was continually advanced by the Greeks and then the Romans, who left behind many examples of their faux work and decorative architectural elements that can be seen to this day in places like the ruins of Pompeii.

So faux painting has a long, rich history and has continued to be popular, sometimes more so than at other times. But the advantages for its use, aside from its cost effectiveness and aesthetic appeal, far outweighs the use of natural materials for a number of reasons, which are all the more meaningful at this time.

We now live in a green world and one increasingly obsessed with the sustainability of materials. A painted finish (executed, of course, using only Environmental Protection Agency-approved paints) can often prove to be a desirable alternative, such as when I’ve used a faux shagreen technique rather than the prohibitively expensive and politically incorrect use of the real skins of shark and/or ray fish, or the use of faux bois to imitate exotic or hard-to-find wood varieties that are fast disappearing from our forests.

On numerous occasions, I’ve used a faux finish to simulate marble or granite when the weight of real stone is prohibitive, such as on my motorized up/down TV cabinets or even a sliding or pivoting table.

And then there’s the great advantage of refinishing that comes to mind. Tired of the look or the color? Refinish. A chip or scratch? Touch-up is certainly a possibility and far less apt to be a problem with the new water-based, yet highly protective catalyzed lacquers now available. The alternatives and freedom of choice of color and technique are without limits.

A word of caution: Be careful not to overuse the magic of faux painting in your decorating scheme. Be discriminating so that its impact and importance is only heightened, as in the case of the faux goatskin sliding table I mentioned. It sits in the room and reigns supreme in its purity and beauty, a brilliant foil to the natural woods and fabrics that surround it and a witness to the artist’s triumph over nature.

Stephen Leon is a licensed interior designer and president of Soleil Design International; he has been designing and manufacturing custom furniture and cabinetry for more than 25 years. He is on the board of directors of the Central California/Nevada Chapter of the American Society of Interior Designers. Questions can be sent to soleildesign@cox.net.