How to Freshen Up Old Hardware with Metallic Paint

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A few days ago I showed off the Little Piggy chest I recently painted . . .

 

 

…and in that post I mentioned that the old hardware on this chest needed a little bit of work.

I’m always glad when I can get original hardware on a piece.  I do my best to keep them in their original condition, but sometimes I can’t get them cleaned up enough and they wind up needing a little work done to bring them back to life.

Case in point with this set–they were super tarnished and no amount of cleaning and scrubbing were brightening the finish back up.

 

 

I didn’t want them to look totally different, just a little brighter and cleaner.  So the solution was to add just a touch of metallic gold paint.

 

 

I cut off an old piece of sweatpants for my rag and squeezed out a tiny bit of Fusion’s Pale Gold paint onto it.

I rubbed the paint into the rag to spread it out some, so I wouldn’t apply too much to the surface of each knob and pull.

Then I lightly wiped it onto each piece.

 

 

That was still a little more than what I wanted on the hardware, so I took another piece of sweatpants rag, dabbed on a few drops of water, then used it to buff off the excess gold paint.

 

 

The process was a little bit of trial and error: I kept wiping on and then buffing off the paint with each knob and pull until I was happy with how they looked.

I think in total though, the whole process took about 5 minutes.  Super quick and simple!

 

 

I like that the hardware still has the original look, but was just brightened up a bit.  And the paint is adhering great–in fact with all my rubbing and buffing it was all basically dry by the time I was finished.

 

 

So there you go! If you missed the whole post on the chest, you can see that here.  Thanks so much!