100 international artists join forces to build a Habitat House in New Orleans.

ARLINGTON, Va. -- A Meet the Artists Grand Gala Press Event will be held from 3-6 p.m. June 16th at the Faux House, Arlington VA to celebrate the Artist's version of "We are the World." Many of the top artists are returning from across the country to attend (e.g. Melanie Royals-3 times published author, Barth White-of Las Vegas Bellagio fame, Ray Sanders, Founder of Faux Effects, etc). The highlight of the press event will be a check presented for the monies raised to date to fund the House that Faux Built, New Orleans. The event will also include the debut of the special edition numbered book which will be included in each press kit. The press event will be followed by a celebratory dinner aboard the Dandy Cruise ship which is open to the public.

The house that Faux Built Project, described below will be featured on HGTV-Small Spaces, big Style, and HGTV magazine, Decorating Ideas, Paint Magic and 10 other national magazines. The House That Faux Built: How to Transform Your Home From Shabby to Showplace Using Paints, Plasters and Creativity (ISBN 0-9778967-2-2) will be published in late June with full color before and after photographs of the Arlington project and its sister project in Chicago.

Top artists from Rome, England, France, and across the U.S. have come together to donate their own special talents to fund a New Orleans Habitat House as well as homes for animals displaced by the hurricanes. The painter's version of "We are the World", this project includes internationally renowned artists to include Barth White who did the Vegas Bellagio faux, Several members of the international artist's salon and nationally published artists Gary Lord "It's Faux Easy", Pierre Finkelstein "The Art of Faux" and Melanie Royals "Stenciling Trompe L'Oeil Murals". Almost 100 product sponsors from the U.S. and Europe participated including Behr, Faux Effects International and Krylon.

It seemed appropriate that this art should be displayed in a home. While the first choice might have been a home in New Orleans, the ongoing rescue and rebuilding of public roads and services made that impractical. Therefore the artists concentrated on a creating a show/faux-house the DC area, a makeover of a Chicago church and rectory, and an international birdhouse painting contest. 100% of proceeds from public tours of the house and private donations go to Habitat to build a home. 100% of proceeds from auctioning the birdhouses will go to Noah's wish for the animals made homeless by the hurricanes. Once funded many of the artists and volunteers will also go to New Orleans to work on the Habitat house.

Many artists brought the New Orleans theme to the project. Shown here a Trompe L' Oiel New Orleans match book is so realistic visitors try to pick it up. A New Orleans menu list, tape & "coffee stain" are painted on the kitchen door. A faux stone fountain symbolizes the people of New Orleans rising from the water and rubble while giving each other a helping hand towards the future.

Other faux and art in the project is geared toward educating the public on how art can transform a living space from dated to dazzling. This dilapidated brick porch with a painted "wood and marble" floor, sparkling plaster, faux carved molding and a painted ceiling was transformed into an elegant dining room.

The Artists eschewed the typical show house mansion for an "everyman" house. A small dated 1940 brick colonial was selected more in keeping with the projects purpose. This was then completely transformed using creativity, paint, plaster and little known techniques to solve problems and avoid costly and disruptive remodeling.

A Few Examples of art transformation of the home:

--A refrigerator and dishwasher painted to look like expensive built-ins

--Faux "inlayed" wood on an old worn parquet floor-to create the impression of inlaid wood/oriental carpet

--Five ways to transform a cement floor to "Wow"

--Fake stone and tumbled marble techniques right over existing bath tile

--Faux "slate" over tile and wood

--Ornamentation steamed on to make "custom" cabinets and furniture

--Faux wood, leather, stones, molding, bookshelves, rugs...even a faux dog.

--Trompe L'Oiel murals making small rooms look larger and low ceilings appear taller

The Arlington House, 1457 N. Longfellow St, Arlington, VA 22205 is open to the public through June 15. (Hours 11-4 Monday-Thursday and 10-6pm Friday-Sunday) Private functions are available thru the end of June for $500 donation; donations would be greatly appreciated as we need to raise 75k to build the house. Checks should be made out to Habitat-New Orleans and mailed to the address below.

For more info, contact the Project Chair, Adrienne van Dooren, [phone]; 7317 Castleberg Ct, Alexandria, VA 22315; [e-mail] or http://www.fauxhouse.com.

Professional before-during and-after pictures and video available upon request