Spraying Old Tin Boxes Silver

It's so very, very, very nearly done!

I have sanded the heirloom medicine cabinet, painted it, distressed it, and as a very-nearly-final step I spray painted the tin storage boxes.

Here's the before shot:

I wanted  to preserve the battered feel, but wasn't bothered about retaining the pictures or lettering - if I came from a family of doctors I could see the point in keeping ancient labels for cotton wool and bandages, but coming from a family of teachers and artists I decided to paint them instead.

So into an old Abel and Cole box they went, together with remnants of onion peel from that week's organic veg delivery:

Several layers of silver spray paint later, and here's how things were looking:

I used three different cans of silver spray (cos I had these nearly-finished cans sitting around in the cupboard) so they all came out slightly different colours, which I like a lot:

Now the cabinet needs handles - and THEN it will be done!

Comments

[Twinkleberry]

A really great job, well done you!

[aneyefordetail]

Nice job and good choices! Those were good before and after pics of the furniture: I have a little stool ready to do but am so hesitant to actually PAINT it! Must get over that.... You think the candle wax helps? But does the paint go over it...just lightly? Makes it easier to sand, right???

[Simply The Nest]

Thanks, guys! Yes, the candle wax works very well - I found that when I tried to sand part of the cabinet that didn't have the wax between the top and bottom coats, I sanded straight through both layers of paint to the original wood below. Having the wax enables you to sand off the top coat only - and it's completely invisible (so don't worry about having greasy marks showing through the paint or something, because you won't see anything at all).