Thanks for all your support over the last twelve months. After this exciting year, we can’t wait to see the pictures and project details you guys send us in 2012.

2011 has also seen Faux Panels involved in some really exciting charitable projects – including donating our time and products to deserving families in partnership with top-rated TV shows like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. That felt really good – giving back to those in need after all our customers have given us.

From the entire Faux Panels team, we’d like to thank you for your patronage, friendship and support over the last year – and look forward to ringing in many more in partnership with you. Please keep reading the Creative Faux Panels blog, and don’t forget to send your pictures and project reports to us at info@fauxpanels.com – we’d love to feature them right here.

Happy holidays, and best wishes for 2012!

Tested to extremes - the same panel at 72° F, -45° F and a baking 135° F

When we say that our stone veneer panels are weatherproof, those aren’t just empty words. Each panel in our range is molded from tough, durable polyurethane and treated to be impervious to humidity, water and insect damage.

But don’t just take our word for it. Here are some of the grueling tests out stone veneer siding and panels go through before we market them as weatherproof:

• Freeze-Thaw: In North America, temperatures can go from one extreme to the other in a very short timespan; and so can our panels. We test them for hours, with a brutal cycle of conditions that mimic those found in nature: 155 degrees Fahrenheit in a convection oven, 12 degrees blow freezing in a cold box and over fifteen hours at 100% humidity and 100 degrees Fahrenheit. After three ‘cycles’ of these temperature extremes, our siding panels hadn’t checked or cracked.
• Salt Spray: As anybody who drives during winter will know, salt spray can be viciously corrosive. We expose our panels over 100 hours of salt spray to mimic months of exposure to the ocean breeze and corrosive elements. Our panels passed – without any imperfections or blisters.
• Humidity Test: Whether you live in the sweltering everglades, or plan to install stone veneer in your bathroom or kitchen, our panels are expected to stand up to heat and moisture. In fact, we test them at 100% humidity and 100 degrees Fahrenheit for other 100 hours to see if the panels blister or the color shifts. They didn’t.
• Immersion Test: Our panels are perfect for water features; and we test them extensively to make sure they’re up to the job. This involves over a day immersed in water, following by scoring to confirm that the panels remained impervious to water and that they didn’t blister or warp.
• Weathering: Our customers tell us: “Your panels look like the real thing.” In order to keep that look, we test our stone veneer siding and panels under an Ultra Violet light for almost 750 hours – proving that they’ll stand up to decades of sunlight.

These brutal testing standards ensure one thing and one thing only – that customers can be confident the stone veneer panels they install will look as good as the day they bought them for many years to come.

To see the specific details of our testing, for every panel in our range, you can visit our specifications page.

Windsor Dry Stack Western Taupe panels on “The Apprentice”

Norwich Colorado Stacked Stone Desert Sand

The list of remodeling ideas in your mind’s eye can sometimes be overwhelming. Should we rescue the kitchen from its tacky 1970′s wallpaper and formica? Does the fireplace look crumbly and uninspired? How can I make the patio be more inviting for my guests?

We’re excited for spring’s arrival and to see all the new ideas and projects our customers come up with. To help them on their quest, we’ve stocked up on some new panel styles from the Norwich line. As we’ve said before, seeing homeowners’ final results with our paneling is the best part of the job.

We have samples of all the Norwich styles and colors to help pick out the best one for you. Go get some spring in your step…and your walls.

In the past 35 years that we’ve been selling faux panels and siding solutions to home and business owners, we’ve accumulated a wealth of do-it-yourself, remodeling and renovation knowledge – most importantly from our own customers’ feedback, design ideas, project stories and more.

The mission of this blog is to share this knowledge with you, in the forms of DIY tips, home makeover stories, design inspiration and more. We also welcome your input, as we’ve found our best source of information comes from our customers’ experiences and know-how as they’ve installed faux products in their homes or place of business.

Over the years, we’re continually surprised and amazed at some of the ideas people have come up with as they incorporate faux panels into their design projects. Take a look at the photo below – a customer used faux panels from our Royal line – installing them beautifully both in the siding and the two front columns guarding the entranceway.

With this blog, we hope you readers will benefit from this gathering of expertise and hopefully contribute your own ideas!

Blog Plans

One fun weekly installment we plan to include in this blog will be called “Makeover Monday.” Keep checking back every week to see the new “Makeover” post. If you have do-it-yourself tips, project ideas, a personal story or anything makeover related, we’d love you to send it in. Don’t forget to include before and after photos if you have them!

Don’t Forget to Comment!

We are always happy to hear from you. Start a conversation with us or another reader, submit a suggestion, share your story or a design tip – the sky’s the limit! Add a comment to a particular post or e-mail us at blog@fauxpanels.com.

Be a Faux Panels Guest Star

We want to keep things interesting and our writers diverse, so we’ll be looking for guest bloggers to write posts. If you have a home improvement experience, design idea, how-to instructions or even just a list of tips, we’d love the opportunity to read and maybe post them. Then you can brag to all your friends that you write for the Faux Panels blog. Submit your posts to blog@fauxpanels.com.