Trompe L'oeil

This is a photo of a hotel I stayed at in Santa Cruz last month. They were doing some renovating and bumping up of their curb appeal. The decorative exterior molding really added a nice touch. Upon closer inspection of the scraps pile in the parking lot, I discovered the molding was composed mostly of foam! Ha, good ol' dimensional foam - covered with wire mesh and coated with some sort of cement mixture to seal it. The worker there also informed me that not only is the foam treatment more cost effective, it also reduces the amount of stress put on the building due to it's lighter weight qualities.