Cast, Paint and Install Giant Plaster Columns for a Themed Room

Two Egyptian columns guard our themed restroom at La Maison Fantastique (The Fantastic House), a fantasy and horror themed venue near Paris that we are building almost entirely by hand, on a small budget. This tutorial covers how we cast, painted, and installed room scale Egyptian style columns for this tomb themed decor. You do not need to be a sculptor: with a 3D printed mold, the right materials, and an extra pair of hands for the install, you can build a real immersive set piece.

More builds, photos and visits at lamaisonfantastique.fr, and a video tour of the whole place is on our YouTube channel: youtube.com/watch?v=bbFy4xyYXWM. We are also on Instagram (instagram.com/lamaisonfantastique) and Pinterest (pinterest.com/lamaisonfantastique) if you want to follow along.

Reinforced plaster (we used Molda 3, fiberglass reinforced), a column mold (ours was 3D printed in PLA, based on a free column model from MakerWorld's marketplace), galvanized chicken wire mesh to reinforce the casting, water, a mixing bucket and tool, protective gloves, a floor protection sheet, sandpaper, wall and ceiling paint in several tones (ours was not necessarily acrylic, just standard wall and ceiling paint), brushes and natural sponges for texture, protective varnish, and mortar or tile adhesive to fix the columns in place. A second pair of hands for the install is a must, plaster is more fragile than resin so this is not a solo job.

We start with the mold: ours is 3D printed in PLA, made from a free column model we found on MakerWorld's marketplace, no hand carved mold needed. Reinforced plaster (we use Molda 3, fiberglass reinforced) is mixed with water until smooth, then poured into the mold in layers, about 5 to 8cm thick. Partway through, a piece of galvanized chicken wire mesh goes inside the casting to reinforce the structure before it is fully filled and left to cure. Each segment is cast separately, which keeps every piece manageable (around 10 to 20kg once cured) and easier to move to the installation site.

Once demolded and sanded, it is time to paint. We use ordinary wall and ceiling paint rather than a specialty product. A dark base coat goes on first, then several lighter tones are dabbed on with a natural sponge to build a stone like texture with tonal variation for an aged look. A protective varnish finishes the job.

Last comes installation. Cast plaster is more fragile than something like M1 resin, so even though these columns are not especially heavy (10 to 20kg each), we always install with two people: one holds and adjusts, the other checks and fixes it in place with mortar or tile adhesive, checking it is level before it sets. This is also when finishing touches go on, like the flame shaped wall sconces that complete the mood.