Artisan of the Month
Laurell Banner
La Faux
Lake Forest, Illinois

Laurell Banner did not discover faux finishing, faux finishing discovered her.  She had always enjoyed painting and decorating her home herself, but she decided to hire an artist to help her decorate her home.  Laurell says “when she looked around she said that I did not need her help and that I should work for her.”  Laurell took her up on her offer, and began working with her and taking classes to learn the trade.  That was more than fifteen years ago.  Now Laurell has her own successful faux finishing business, La Faux.

Before her career in faux finishing, Laurell worked in public relations until she left the field to raise her family.  Faux finishing was just the change that she was looking for.  It affords her an opportunity to express her creativity and use her natural talents in decorating.  In addition to her business La Faux, Laurell also works part time at Romancing The Home in Lake Forest, Illinois.  Working at Romancing The Home allows her to work with other decorators, further expanding her client base.

When asked about her favorite products and techniques, Laurell says that she enjoys working with plasters most of all.  She is especially excited about working with the new Meoded Plaster that Kathy is now offering in her store.  One of her favorite jobs was a house that she worked on in Barrington.  She says that she enjoyed this one in particular because she did a lot of Venetian plaster in that home.  She also enjoys finishing mirrors using techniques that she learned from a class taught by Kathy Carroll.  She is finding that there is a good market for antiquing mirrors and is getting a lot of business gilding them and using Modellos in decorating them as well.  She says that these techniques are easy to sell once decorators and clients realize how affordable they are.  Laurell also enjoys getting creative with different products.  She was one of the first to use the new line of M.L. Campbell products that Kathy offers, to finish a whole kitchen.   It was an older kitchen, and she finished the pine cabinets in a cream tone and then glazed them.

Laurell believes that education is an important component to her business.  She comments “you learn to use products in the right way, which saves you from wasting time and money on mistakes.”  She knows how important it is in her field to keep your skills current and have an up-to-date portfolio.  For these reasons, she has taken and continues to take many classes from Kathy.  She says that she especially likes to take the Professional Update classes because of the new techniques that she learns from them. 

Laurell says of Kathy “I can’t say enough good things about Kathy.  She’s a fabulous teacher, and I consider her a friend.”  After all of the classes that she has taken from Kathy, she has come to know that she can always count on Kathy to be there to help her when she needs it.