In today’s makeover, I show you how to refinish wood to look like brushed steel. Console tables are like gold in my industry. They’re incredibly versitile. These long, thin tables have so many uses and can be used in any room of the home or office. Use them as hallway tables, sofa tables, vanities, or even as shoe racks in the mudroom! Here’s how to use General Finishes Pitch Black glaze over a dark gray to make a wood table look like brushed steel.
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Products List
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Start With Wood
Today’s makeover is actually a re-makeover.
Telling you it’s made by Lane Furniture Company is equivalent to telling your this is a quality, sturdy, strong piece of solid wood construction. I can hear my Dad saying to me… They don’t make them like this anymore. And it’s true.
If you have a piece of furniture made by Lane, hold onto it. If you don’t care for the current finish, refinish it or, better yet, hire me to refinish it for you!
This console table was originally coated with a flat brown stain and matte polyurethane. Can you say “boring”.
To brighten it up, last summer I sanded and painted it a fun, pumpkin orange with paint a quart of paint found on the mis-tint shelf at the hardware store. At the time, I had been painting everything in my shop black or white and was feeling the need for color.
While I loved the color, I came to the realization that buyers want neutral colors – blacks, whites, tans, grays, and blues to blend in with the rest of the furnishings in their home.
So the fun had to go.
There was one other problem with this table. The space underneath was just too open. In the photo you can see a single, large basket there, but it still leaves alot of open, wasted space. Yes, it could be styled differently, but having just that one shelf, limits its use.
Instead, I decided to add a shelf. Now with TWO shelves, this console table can proportionately hold books, baskets, serving platters, bath towels, or my favorite option for this table… SHOES!
That’s another reason why I opted for a very dark color with lots of shading – to hide dirt! Finding pretty shoe storage in a mudroom is really hard. Finding pretty shoe storage that actually holds alot of large, adult-size shoes is even harder!
This console table now fits all of these requirements. It’s a dark color to hide the dirt, it has two wide shelves to hold large shoes and keep them organized, and it’s actually nice to look at. A win-win-win!
The dark gray finish will hide the dirt so well because it has quite a bit of color variation. It’s not a flat finish. It’s looks like a blue-gray brushed metal.
Black Glaze Over Paint
The first coat of paint is a gray satin. I combined about a pint of some very dark gray matte paint and added about a 1/4 cup of bright royal blue satin paint. I just happen to use some paint I had on hand. The color ended up being a dark gray with blue undertones.
Once dry, add a coat of General Finishes Pitch Black Glaze. To apply the glaze, brush it on as you would a coat of paint, allow the glaze to settle in all the cracks, then wipe it off with a clean, white rag. Work in small sections.
TIP:
If you find the glaze is not wiping off easily enough, add a little water to your rag. If your first coat of paint is very matte, apply a clear, water-based polycrylic between the paint and glaze coats. This will make the surface slicker and easier to wipe off the glaze.
The result is a finish that has shows layers of paint, shadows, and color variations.
While the table is very thick, solid-wood, this tabletop was actually Parquet (a geometric mosaic of wood pieces). Parquet is most often seen on floors, but is occasionally used as veneer on furniture. It’s still wood, so was able to be sanded and refinished easily.
I actually love the way the parquet took the glaze and would use this on a wood floor if I ever needed to. The glaze settled into the alternating groves and resulted in alot of color contrast on the top surface. This is truly a one-of-a-kind piece.
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