Tips on using Metallic Paint and a Silver Painted Dressing Table Set

I recently was asked to work with some talented interior designers, Chris and Jamie of Defining Spaces, with painting some bedroom furniture for their client's teenage daughter. Chris and Jamie had sourced a very beautiful vintage dressing table and asked me to paint it silver.  It was quite a big job and I was glad to see this piece shipped off yesterday. I still have to upholster the little stool when Chris decides on a fabric so I'll show you that later.

In the meantime here is the silver dressing table (and the clients's own side table that I also painted) in all its silvery glory!

I wasn't keen on the sound of silver initially but I absolutely love how it turned out.

I also loved painting with the silver paint - it's like molten metal and it's so luxurious. I think I'm a convert to some bling!

I have had so many questions and messages about this piece already and how I achieved the finish.

I used a  specialist silver metallic paint. Brands in Australia you can use are: Porters Paints, Dulux Design Metallic, White Knight Metal Guard. America it seems has a huge range of metallic paints. As always the US has a much bigger range of everything!

My tips for using metallic paint are:

Don't freak out at the cost. It's expensive but compared to silver leafing, much more affordable.

A small container of silver metallic paint goes a long way.

Use a tinted grey primer as undercoat

Watch your brush strokes.

Do not water down your paint

Paint in the recommended environment and temperature range.

Most metallic paint is designed for an effects wall and is recommended to be used in a cross hatch pattern. My client didn't want this so I did a sample board of careful long brush strokes and they were happy with that. It meant very carefully watching my brush strokes but the effort was worth it as the finish on the dressing table is beautiful.

It would also work well sprayed

Top coat as required with whichever top coat you wish.

For a more subtle silver look or if you can't get your hands on metallic paint, use gray instead of silver paint and finish with metallic glaze.

Don't over-brush as this causes the solver paint to loose it's metallic lustre and you can get patches of grey paint rather than silver.

I spray painted the original handles using Dulux Chrome Spray Paint. They turned out beautifully.

Silver or any other high gloss / high sheen paint will show up every single ding or imperfection in the timber. My client hadn't realised that and on the little side table that was an old family treasure there were a lot of dings on the front lip. It wasn't until Chris came to see the finished product that he asked me to fill in those dings. I should have asked initially but for me I love those little imperfections showing a life time of use. Anyway I filled the dints and repainted the table for him.  I didn't take a photo of the finished side table but you can see below the dings and how the light captures the divots.

The legs of this dressing table are so gorgeous. I was just about to type that they are my favourite part but I also love that serpentine front.

What do you think? 

Can you imagine living with a silver dressing table?

Is silver the new black?

I will definitely be using silver paint again...and soon!

Fiona xx

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Miss Mustard Seed

The Great Coffee Table Dilemma

What's a girl to do when she owns two beautiful coffee tables?

two beautiful French style coffee tables

ones with curves and scrolls and pretty carvings

one already painted and one still timber

but possibly needing to be painted if you can't live with the orange-ness of it all.

Well I asked my husband which one we should keep and he said emphatically that we were NOT selling the slatted coffee table I made a few months ago

So last night I listed the beautiful curvy scrolly unpainted coffee table and had loads of people inquire about it and it's been bought by a lovely customer, Miriam (who also bought this bookshelf). I'm waiting for her to decide how she wants it painted so I'll let you know how it ends up).

I think I'll be really sad to say goodbye this coffee table because when I found it I was so excited and thought the great coffee table dilemma had come to an end. Oh well, you need to make your husband happy, especially when it's your own work that he's fallen in love with.

It's been a bit of a revolving door with coffee tables here: I'm a bit particular about size and shape as I like them to not be too tall.  Here are some of our previous tables in my search for the perfect one.

fun fun fun

Do you have a piece of furniture in your house that you can't quite get right? Tell me what it is, just to make me feel better about my own coffee table dilemma...

Fiona xx

Painting a Bathroom Vanity

I was recently commissioned to paint a bathroom vanity. Robyn and her husband were renovating their bathroom and wanted to reuse a timber vanity but wanted it a bright white to brighten up the room.

When painting furniture that is to go in places that get wet my recommendation is to use an aqua-enamel. For this piece I used Dulux Aqua Enamel in a Semi Gloss which is a beautiful paint to work with and I am very confident of its durability and its ability to withstand water damage that may occur in a bathroom.  Personally I would not use chalk paint on a vanity unless it was sealed with lacquer and to me that is more complicated than using aqua-enamel paint which requires no top coat. For the colour, Robyn chose Peplum half strength as that is what she had used on the doors and trim in the bathroom. It is a very bright stark white. 

The top and backing board was removed as Robyn was replacing the timber top with Casearstone. I received the vanity looking like it does below. I removed the doors for painting and suggested to Robyn she replaced the hinges as the original ones were quite rusty and also the doors were slightly misaligned.

I primed with two coats of zinsser and then gave it four coats of Dulux Aqua-enamel, sanding very lightly between coats. The bottom shelf was tricky to paint due to access with the paint brush so I rolled that and then lightly feathered a brush across it. When using a semi gloss paint do not sand after your last coat of paint. You will ruin the sheen.  Bad iPhone blurry photo but I lost some photos when my PC died a few weeks ago. I left the doors off because I wanted the maximum amount of curing time for the paint.

Here is the bathroom before-hand

and now after Robyn's renovation. Stunning isn't it and what a difference.  As well as the vanity I also painted the mirror frame.  Robyn also had the beautiful lead light window made. I really love it; a gorgeous feature in her new bathroom.  BTW her tapware is Brodware, the same brand as the ones I have in my bathroom. They are such high quality tapware and an Australian company.

Robyn gave me some lovely feedback which is always greatly appreciated. "Thank you for the lovely job you did painting the vanity and mirror frame, They look much better....The vanity is lovely...Thank you for painting the vanity and inspiring me with your blog, I will have to have a go at painting some furniture myself"

If you would like any of your furniture custom painted please contact me for a quote. 

Fiona x

Advanced Paint Effects - Aged Patina the Annie Sloan way

If I ran furniture painting workshops or should I say when I run as no doubt it will happen one day, one of the techniques I would teach people as part of an advanced class is how to do what I call a "Restoration Hardware" finish. Or perhaps you could call it "Wisteria" finish as they also do it so well. 

Annie Sloan calls it a distressed finish although it's not distressing as you would normally think of it.

Color Recipes by Annie Sloan; photo by Christopher Drake

 A dragged two layered paint effect that is beautiful and has an aged patina.

There are several (probably many) ways to achieve this look but Annie Sloan has a fantastic and easy way. I have done this on several pieces now and am always happy with how they turn out.  I gave this little side table a similar paint treatment but I was more subtle with my brush strokes (than Annie Sloan has been on the above piece) for a finer look. 

My table started out a little worse for wear. The varnish was quote crazed and so I gave it a light sand but thought that the ageing would work to my advantage anyway so didn't strip it. For pieces like these it's always good to start painting upside down so you don't miss any spots. I painted the whole piece in one coat of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint French Linen painting in the direction of the timber grain. The look is to mimic aged wood so you want your paint brush marks to follow the grain and not be cross-hatched.

 I then mixed equal parts of Paris Grey and Old White. I probably mixed a tablespoon of paint of each. I then added some water to make the paint flow easily. It probably was a little over a tablespoon of water but I wasn't measuring exactly. You can decide for your self how runny you want the paint to be and what works for the look you are wanting.You will not need much. Do this step of mixing the paint before you wax as the wax needs to be tacky while you apply the paint mix.

Once the French Linen paint was dry, I started waxing with Annie Sloan Clear Wax.  It is important to work in small defined areas and to work quickly. Wax an area and then brush on your pale grey paint wash with a flat brush. Wipe off the paint in long wipes with a clean rag to achieve the distressed aged timber effect.

Work in small areas QUICKLY with a clean rag for each wipe pass until your piece is looking how you want it to. Your aim is to wipe the paint over a greater area than you painted it.

I then waited a day for the piece to fully dry and I sanded and gave my piece another coat of wax. I was really gentle with the final wax coat as I didn't want to lift the distressed paint layer.

It's a subtle look on this piece but the piece sold extremely quickly so it obviously worked!

This way of achieving this look is easier than dry brushing as the wax allows a great control and longer working time than just applying the paler paint on the first coat of paint.

So if I hold furniture painting classes in 2014, who's signing up?

Fiona xx

Sorry for the terrible photos. I painted this last week with all the hassle after the lightning strike and was too rushed, too busy to spend time getting good photos - sorry!

White Painted Table, Dealing with Bleed Through

One of my clients who has a lot of my painted furniture in her house recently asked to to paint her hall table. It's one of those Indonesian timber tables that "bleed" when you paint it. I would normally hesitate when accepting these paint jobs as they are difficult, time consuming and costly in paint, but Danielle is lovely and has been very supportive of my work so I said yes. 

Well I am getting better at dealing with bleed through more quickly. I can always deal with it but dealing with it quickly is what you need when painting for payment. You see below the pink hues of bleed through on the drawers and in the slats.

Someone asked me the other day what bleed through is. Bleed through is due to migration of tannins or timber stain from the substrate through the paint film.It is when timber has been stained or is naturally oily or full of tannin and the piece is not fully sealed, when you paint or prime the piece, the colour "bleeds" through the paint, causing your paint to discolour and go pink or brown. It most often occurs with old mahogany or cedar furniture, on resinous knots or open wood grain of pine and these Balinese pieces that have dark stain and timber edging where it isn't smoothly cut (ie on slats, on joins etc).

You may not always be able to tell if your piece is going to bleed but you will generally notice it immediately as you paint. I have known some pieces to not discolour for up to a week but that's unusual.

The usual way to stop bleed through is to use the shellac based Zinsser BIN primer. The one with the burgundy coloured label. It is expensive so I have a tin that I only use to combat this problem and I use other Zinsser primers for less difficult pieces. I have found that spraying the BIN on is more effective than brushing it. With bleed through on vintage mahogany pieces two coats of primer is usually enough to contain it but these pieces of Balinese furniture can take many more coats that that. Spraying agitates the stain less and contains it more quickly.

This piece bled more than any other piece I have painted, especially because of all those slats. I used a whole can of Zinsser BIN and it still bled. So I used some Rustoleum 2X white primer paint lacquer I had been given at their launch party. It sealed it very nicely and I then used chalk paint to paint over the lacquer. 

This piece had a big crack right down the timber top where the timber panels had separated. Danielle said to not bother fixing but after it was painted white, it looked more obvious and I couldn't cope with it so I told her I was fixing it at no extra charge. I filled the hole and then when I went to sand the wood putty flat, the timber started to bleed and bleed again. Back out came the spray can. Anyway the extra effort was worth it as the top is beautifully finished now. 

Danielle wanted this piece distressed and when I started sanding it I still had more bleed through. There are still a couple of tiny spots where you can see pale pink but we ended up deciding that was okay.  I think it's just the nature of these Balinese pieces and once the piece is in use in a room you will never notice. I get a bit perfectionist with my work as I am dealing with it so closely with my face 10cm from the painted timber surface. Once the furniture is in use in someones house you never notice these little imperfections. 

In the photo above you can notice little slivers of pink on the distressing on that middle slat.

For more help with dealing with paint problems read here

The tissue paper pom pom is home made and you can find the tutorial here. I painted (well actually half painted as I haven't finished yet) the ampersand and it will be for sale soon. The candlestick holder I found at the markets and is painted white. The felt floral cushion on the left is from Spotlight years ago, the middle beige and black cushion is made by me and is for sale and the putty white cushion on the right is from Flower Power. The painting above the hall cabinet is by John Downton and was my mother's. It's of Haycock in Ben Boyd National park near Eden where we used to go to the beach in my childhood.

have a great day.
Fiona