How to Paint Furniture Silver Metallic

Happy Friday Everyone!  I am finally back in the swing of things and actually painting furniture. Woo Hoo! This week my client is actually my son.  He is moving into a new place and needed some new furniture.

Years ago a friend and I found an old dresser on the side of the road. It had great bones but needed a lot of TLC!  I finally decided to take all of the drawers out,  paint it black, add shelving and baskets to make storage for my office.  This worked really well for a few years but as with everything here at the castle-things change.  It was hanging out in my guest room when my son asked if he could up-cycle it for his new place.  Which really means “Mom can you repaint, rework etc..)  He chose a silver metallic with a black glaze and I was more than happy to get my paint on!

 

Here is how it started out.  I almost forgot to get a before shot! Eeekk! Very tired and Sad!

 

I have been to workshops where they started their metallic finish with spray paint, but shied away from it because -well, the thought of it kind of scared me.  I had visions of runs.  Would it be hard to glaze over? Would the topcoat I decided to use work well with it?  Yeah, you can see I worry it to death!  I finally decide that this would be the time to test it out.  So spray paint it I did!  Here is how to paint furniture in a silver metallic finish.

Next I painted the whole thing with Martha Stewarts metallic paint in silver.  See the pic above?  THAT IS WHAT NOT TO DO!  I was brushing it on and didn’t like the brush lines.  I decided to roll it on with a  small sponge roller and this is the pattern that it left.  Ugh!  So I went right back to brushing it on.  Thing was, if I had been patient I would have seen that the brush stokes back filled themselves.  In other words, they all but disappeared!  I then glazed the entire piece with a black glaze.

Here is the finished piece..

And here you can see more of the detail that the glaze brings out. All it needs are some cute baskets and It is ready to go!  Maybe some black ones?  Or maybe some antique wire pool baskets with the numbers on them?

I gotta say that I would definitely use the spray paint again.  It made for a super easy base coat that still had the metallic shine.  The Martha Stewart paint really just added another layer of the metallic.  Some day I am going to get up enough nerve to try just the spay paint on its own with the Martha Stewart paint.  For reals.  The spray paint went on perfectly – no drips.  The metallic was bright, shiny and well – metallic.  Not dull at all.  The paint accepted the glaze beautifully.  I couldn’t have asked for a better result than the one I got.  AND to put the cherry on the top – this entire piece took me an afternoon.  The paint and glazes all dried super quickly.  That’s a big bonus for me!

If you have ever wanted to try and paint a metallic piece, this method is a winner!  So much so, I am looking for something else to paint silver metallic!

Until next time….