Antiqueing a room?

[Lillian Vanderdark]

One of the two rooms that have become my personal projects during our renovations needs to look like it has been sitting down there for well over 100 years, without cheesy cobwebs and the like. I can antique the fabrics for the room no problem, and the bookshelf and the picture frames. It's those pesky walls that are giving me problems. I did something rather unorthodox and painted the room Fairytale Pink (yes, a Disney color) since it is supposed to be themed as a little girl's birthday to fit the story of the haunt. Now, said pink needs to look like it's been there about 110 years. Any advice or tips or links would be most welcome, as I am facing crunch time!

[Jim Warfield]

Maybe a white wash over the pink?
You could mask out some of the areas to leave it brighter in the shape of rectanglular shapes, being where furniture sat against the wall keeping the paint it's original brighter color as the sun faded the rest.
A classmate of my cousin painted her bedroom an almost day-glow pink/orange around 1955. The room was in a Victorian house with a south facing bay (upstairs) window when the sun shined it about ripped your eyes out! Nobody could sleep "late" in that room!
If your room is of the Victorian period look through some books about that period, alot of strange decorative things were done back then, usually very ornamental and over-the-top by almost anyone else's standards or ideas.
Rugs, wallpaper and curtains were sometimes all different patterns and all next one another!

[AW]

spray bottles of watered down gray and fungus green paint and then apply fullers earth for that dusty look

[Lillian Vanderdark]

Thanks for the advice. Sun faded walls, as cool as that sounds, wouldn't be so realistic in a basement, unfortunately. I may give the watered down gray and green a shot though. Thanks again.

[Jim Warfield]

"Basement"? Aren't you in the busienss of suspending belief and altering the customer's sense of direction and reality?
The basement walls could have become faded when the basement was where people who built the house were living for the first 20 years under that big skylight
Most old houses around here began as smaller houses and had additions put on them as more children came along and some more money came along.
Almost nobody could afford to build the house they needed right away.

[Greg Chrise]

Over time, paint oxidizes and becomes thin. The grey and green mold wash is the way to go but, To start off with the pink shouldn't be just painted solid two coats of pink. It should be watered down over a tan or light grey base and then sprayed with water (any household spray bottle) as it sets to bring out the base color here and there, thin over here and so on. Then go for the washes over that.

Other wise a solid pink will yeild a crappy brown grey with just a wash and become known as the pepto bismal room. Some washes may actually have a white tone depending on what kind of lights the scene will have. Really watered down like, spray with water then splatter or get some to run then more spray bottle action.

It is also possible to mechanically sand away the pink to show the base color. Most sand paper however leaves some of IT's undesireable color behind.

[Lillian Vanderdark]

Well, yes I am. However, the Baxter Avenue Morgue was never a house. It's always been a huge commercial building used for various things. The haunt is set in the basement on purpose, because that is where Warren Vanderdark, the owner, moved his family to as business started to decline. The wattered down paint in spray bottles has worked amazingly well...just got done with about four hours of work in there, and the room definately looks like it has been down here forever. Instead of a gray I used a wattered down brown stain to "dirty" the walls and a greenish-brown to make them look a little moldy. I'll have pictures up as soon as I can get a camera down here.