Facade Value

When Shelley Walker decided the interior of her Newport Beach home needed a make-over, she didn’t want a plain old paint job.

Instead she had Joan Burton and Peter Richter of Architextura treat the surfaces the way artists would treat a canvas.

In the master bedroom, they peeled off the wallpaper and massaged the walls with layer upon layer of paint until the surface looked like lush, brown suede. They covered the walls of the family room in deep shades of yellow to give them a warm, aged finish.

They hand-sponged the ceiling throughout the home in different tints of white, creating what Walker describes as a “wind-swept feel.”

“I like a home to be warm and comfy, and this gave it that feeling,” Walker said. “It has a really soft look.”

Most home decorators know a fresh coat of paint can make interiors and furnishings look new again, but Burton and Richter use paint to make interiors look timeless.

When painting walls, floors, ceilings and furniture, the pair have gone beyond single-color flat finishes. They can transform new plaster walls into surfaces that look richly aged, and they can make a concrete slab floor look like polished stone.

That has prompted their clients to rip out old flooring and have the couple paint on the bare concrete instead of covering it with new carpet, tile or vinyl. Even cracks are no problem. They’re considered part of the floor’s aged-looking charm.

“A lot of times we paint fake cracks on the floor,” Richter said. “They make the floor look like a piece of old stone instead of a brand new slab.”

On floors and walls, Burton and Richter also add decorative details such as nautical stars, zig-zags and checks. At Habana restaurant in Costa Mesa, they painted an orange zig-zag border on an onyx-colored concrete floor.

“We can copy anything onto the floor,” Burton said. “We can do plaids, checkerboards, brick. We can even make it look like there’s food on your kitchen floor.”

They’ve taken art images printed on thin paper and worked them in under the layers of paint. They adorned one floor with gothic angels.

The couple don’t call their custom finishes faux. They don’t like their work to be mistaken for trendy faux painting, which involves applying different colored paints with sponges, rags, feathers and other tools. When crudely done, Burton said, that type of faux painting leaves visible tool marks. Often the finished work doesn’t look aged, it just looks sloppy.

“What we do is more timeless. This is subtle, but it has a depth and a richness.”

Burton and Richter try to create the kind of classical-looking walls found in older, elegant establishments such as the Hotel Monaco in San Francisco, which has butter-yellow walls that give the place an ageless feel.

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To create that Old World look, the pair often use a dozen paints in slightly varying shades (they’re partial to Ralph Lauren’s water-based line). They’ll spend days rubbing a concrete floor by hand with assorted cloths and tools. The paint grabs the slab with different degrees of intensity, a quality they enhance by working the paint into the surface in thin layers instead of slathering it on in thick coats.

“We water down paints and layer and layer them,” Burton said. “It’s a lot of manipulation and it takes a long time. I was working on the floor of a 4,500-square-foot showroom, and it was taking me so long that by 3 in the morning I started crying.”

When the work is done and they’ve applied the final coat of clear glaze, no tool marks are visible. Many think the concrete floors and stucco walls look like stone.

Concrete is more durable than many other types of flooring, making it a popular choice for restaurants. Chips happen, but they can be fixed and repainted.

“You can scrape chairs on it. It’s very hard,” Burton said.

Architextura charges about $2 to $5 per square foot for painting a floor or wall. The price depends on the difficulty of the project.

Burton and Richter, who are engaged, recently moved their business from Newport Beach to Long Beach. Before starting Architextura two years ago, they turned chairs and other furniture into whimsical abstract art.

“We started with furniture and moved to other canvases--floors and walls,” Burton said. “After that, it took off.”

They have painted homes and commercial buildings throughout California, specializing in restaurants that want an Old World ambience.

Artificially aged furnishings and finishes have become popular in homes too, Burton said. People want the feel of the warm, centuries-old villas of Tuscany even if they live in modern tract houses.

“The [textured paint] finishes fit in with all of the pine and the shabby chic furnishings,” she said. “When we’re doing a more elegant interior, the finish will be more subdued.”

Burton and Richter also do more obvious faux work, such as painting plaster fireplaces and columns to look like marble and drywall to look like brick. They refinish furniture and fixtures that others are ready to discard. They find a lot of items to renovate at garage sales.

“We do a lot of crackle and aging,” Burton said.

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They have painted an old file cabinet to look like green malachite. Richter, who once worked as an apprentice for an artist who customized cars for the Hard Rock Cafe chain, has started painting vintage refrigerators to look like flamboyant hot rods, complete with colorful flames. He’s working on a ‘20s barber’s chair.

The couple will begin repainting automobile hoods and other old car parts, which they will turn into coffee tables and other furnishings.

“We try to recycle and refurbish whenever possible,” Burton said. “Paint can change anything.”

Architextura, (562) 951-5567