DIY Silver Paint
Victorian Chair Makeover
For this project you will need some
oil-based silver paint. I am using "Liquid
Leaf" and it is available at craft and
hobby stores and you can also order it
online. I'm using oil-based paint so that
I don't have to strip and sand before I
paint the chair. I'm using a one-inch
artist brush and you can either be ready
to throw your brush away or get some
mineral spirits to clean your brush with
when you're done. Make sure you shake up your paint really well before you start.
I'm taping the edges of the fabric with
painters tape because you will not get
the paint cleaned off the fabric if you
get it on there so tape it as close up
to the edges as you can. I cover the
rest of the chair with fabric kind of as
I go to keep drips from getting onto the
fabric. This paint goes on very easily
and it also dries very fast. I paint in
the direction of the grain only because
that gives it a more natural look. I also
use for this entire chair only two of
the small containers  of paint that I showed in the beginning of the video When you get
close to the edges where the fabric is,
just go really slow and try to not even
get any paint on the tape and if you do
that, you're less likely to have the
paint seep under the tape.
Just get your paint on enough to cover
and be sure you don't leave any drips
behind. One of the hardest places to keep
paint off the fabric is down where the
arms or the back of the chair meet the
fabric so be especially careful taping
that off that you are all the way up to
the edge between the wood and the
fabric. I usually add a couple extra rows
of tape because if I don't I will
probably either drip paint on the fabric
or rub my brush against the fabric as I
go. To paint the chair you want to keep a
minimal amount of paint on your brush
when you do this. You want to stay
away from the tape as much as possible.
Just try to use a little bit of paint and
do a light coat and don't try to jam
your brush down next to the tape because
it will probably seep through onto the
fabric.
 
The reason I'm using the oil-based paint
is so that I don't have to sand this
wood all the way down or prime it before
I put this paint on there. The only reason my wood looks like this
is because I tried a different metallic
paint that I did not like so I had to
remove most of that chalky finish to put this
finish on there. The other reason I like
an oil-based paint for this chair is
that when I go to distress it I can go
ahead and distress it and I do not have
to put a coating over top of it like a
clear wax or polyurethane. Once it's
distressed it's ready to go. You could
also just leave it silver if you didn't
want to distress it. So this is a pretty
quick and easy way to do this chair.
I let my paint dry for eight hours before
I came back to distress it. The best
sandpaper to use when distressing this
is going to be between 180 to a 220
grit. It will take the finish off fairly
easy so just go slow so you can see what
you're doing and learn exactly what the
sandpaper is going to do. Because this is
an oil-based paint it actually has
undertones in the silver so what
happens is when you sand it is that it looks kind of like sterling silver. It brings
out some grays and some blacks which are  colors from which this paint was
made. As much as I like chalk paint I
have found that the best metallic finish
is in an oil-based paint and that is why
I am using that on this chair. I tried a
metallic chalk paint before this and it
just did not have the kind of shine you
can get from an oil-based paint. Now like
I said I am NOT going to put a top coat
on this, If you wanted to you could put
an oil-based polyurethane on it but I
don't see a reason to because you've
already got a well protected shiny
finish and you just don't have
do that.
 
I'm doing most of my sanding just on the
edges and then I kind of run the
sandpaper down the middle of the grooves as I go, -it's pretty quick and painless
to get this chair distressed with this
paint so probably about 10 to 15 minutes
of sanding on this chair and it is done.
I always sand with the grain because it
gives it a more natural look and then
like on the bottom of this leg, I go
around the other way because that's just
how it would be naturally.
So these are my results. This is my sterling silver distressed Victorian chair makeover.
I'm really happy with it I think it looks
great. I love the paint and I love the
colors. So thank you for watching please
check back I put up new videos all the
time and I have all types of DIY videos for
furniture, dressers, upholstery and
some DIY home repair stuff. Thanks for
watching!
you