Giving it All a Bit of Character
Last week, painting of the built-in was completed, except for the base.
The other night I primed and painted the base, with the next step - glazing. As I mentioned last week, the dining room table, hutch and a plant stand were all painted with Valspar's Polar Star (using Behr paint - one of those oddities of convenience), then glazed with Valspar's Antiquing Glaze.
But you know what? I only had half a bottle of the Valspar glaze, and it turns out Lowes discontinued that line, and replaced it with a different glaze. On reading the reviews, it seems the new glaze tended to have a brownish look to it, and with everything else in the dining room having a blackish glaze - well, you know. So the search was on! I tried Home Depot, but the lady there said they didn't carry glaze anymore, and suggested I go to a craft store. I dunno, that was a little off-putting, as in my mind's eye I pictured little bottles of glaze to put on little ceramic projects. This built-in is anything but little! So, after reading lots of reviews on Amazon about a number of glazes, I settled on General Finishes Pitch Black.
Turns out, I'm glad I found this glaze! After a little practice it was really easy to use...the key there is practice! This stuff dries very fast, so much so that I almost messed up badly! I tried to cover too large an area, and had to work like crazy with some very wet rags to salvage the job! After I got the feel for it though, it went on nice, and looked great! Here's a shot:
I'll save other pictures for later. I love the way the glaze helps highlights some of the architectural details and adds depth to the whole project. The next step is to install baseboards around the base - this thing is almost done!!