Aged Silver Finish

I want to show you how I created an aged silver finish for my cane back chairs that I refinished.

Here’s what the finish looks like up close:

To achieve this look, I first painted the chairs with some left-over Behr Premium Plus Ultra (paint and primer in one) in Gulf Winds that I had from another project.

If you want to know how to replace cane webbing, I tell you how to get started and then Miss Mustard Seed did my feature on how to replace cane webbing.

When I glaze a piece of furniture, I like to use a brush for the paint, instead of spray paint. That goes doubly for a piece that doesn’t have a lot of details. By using a brush, your brush strokes become areas for the glaze to sink into, and you end up with a more natural looking glazed finish.

Since I wanted the chairs to be silver, I had to use spray paint. That’s okay, though, because the spray paint over the brushed primer coat is still going to give me the definition I want.

I used Krylon’s Metallic Brilliant Silver for the chairs. I like how my reflection shows in the lid. Awesome.

I sprayed several light coats on the chairs, which gave them a nice, shiny finish. It’s hard to get the sheen with my camera, but they really are more silver than gray, as they look here.

 

Next, I used my Valspar Antiquing Glaze.

On the first chair, I slathered it on and wiped it back off.

It took several layers of doing this to get the look I wanted.

At first, it looked like this:

I didn’t really care for the look. I brushed out the areas, rubbed more on, wiped more off, until I got the look I liked.

Since I was doing the post for Miss Mustard Seed, I wanted a before and after shot of the chairs, so I worked quickly to get one chair completed. I then got sidetracked by my foot surgery, so it was awhile before I worked on chair number two.

When I got back up and moving again, I forgot what I did the first time, decided to try another method . I used a dry brush technique which really gave me the aged patina I was going for, without all the painting on and wiping off that I did on the first chair.

 To dry brush, dip the brush into the glaze and then dabbed it back off on the sides of the bowl or on a piece of paper. You want your brush to be “dry.” I never had more than this amount on the brush.

You really just want to be very light with the application. Short strokes, in a back and forth motion was all it took. It sure beats all the painting on and wiping back off.

I applied a couple of coats of clear Minwax Paste Furniture Wax. I like to apply the wax with an old brush to get an even coat. Once it dried to a dull finish, I buffed out the wax until it had a nice shine.

We’re ready for our close-up!

I plan on using this same paint technique on my piano! It’s quickly moving up my To Do list.

Tell me, does it look like aged silver to you?

Cost Breakdown:

• Behr Paint Sample – Stash on Hand
• Krylon Metallic Spray Paint – $3.00 (1.5 Cans – Had 1 Can in Stash)
• Valspar Antiquing Glaze – Stash on Hand
• Minwax Paste Furniture Wax – Stash on Hand

Total Project Cost: $3.00

Total Project Time – About 5 hours with drying time

Suesan

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