Graining Specialist Decorating Skills

The imitation of a wood grain with paint, brushes and other tools and materials was first attempted some three thousands years ago. At that time it was to deceive, trick or con people to spend more money on what they thought was a rare type of wood from some foreign land.

In the present day the art of imitating, usually, rare types of wood is carried out for many reasons. The obvious one is to make a cheap, say pine door, look like a very expensive, solid oak door. Another could be purely decoration where the colour of a particular wood fits in with the overall decor of an interior.

What ever the reason the art of graining is being practice all over the world, some good attempts some not so good. Here are some of my attempts.

Front Door This is a 1930's house that had most of its original fixtures and fittings taken out. The new owner put them all back. And the front door could well have been originally grained. Here I've used a water based graining colour. The first picture is the door with just the base coat on and the second grained in oak.
Fire Surround The fire surround here is MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard) stained. I don't know what you think but cheap and nasty comes to my mind. And so it did to this particular client. The client asked me to grain the surround to match her furniture.
Attic Door This client had his attic converted into an office. The new door had to be half hour fire resistant and flush. The problem was that all the other doors where original, stripped, paneled and pine. I've grained it in pine but also created a 'trick of the eye' panel effect or as the French say 'trompe l'oeil' to match the other doors. (click on the photo to see more detail of the graining)
Pub Sign A swinging pub sign with the frame grained in an oak effect. (click on the photo to see more detail of the graining)