Painted Antique Light Fixtures

Usually, I shut down my metal studio in January to prepare for the upcoming season. This year however, I decided to upgrade the workspace. Which led to upgrading the living space, by replastering my walls. This took much longer than I had anticipated, but well worth the efforts as my home no longer looks like the Alamo. Along the way I found a few extra projects for myself. This is one of them. These original light sconces live in the foyer outside the kitchen. I also painted the canopy for the new ceiling light fixture to match since it came with a spray-paint job anyway.

Original Sconce

Crustyness / 100 year old wiring

Clean well. Paint black. I used acrylic Homefront Decorator color I bought at Ace Hardware.

Tip: Use Satin or Flat black as an undercoat when dry-brushing. See how it

dries Matte (sconce on the left)? You want that. Picks up the paint better than glossy.

Dry-brush acrylic red over black lightly. Two times. Leave black showing in recesses and blotchy on flat areas. You can use any color combinations. I like these red, really modernizes them. But I want to take them back to metallic.

Very sparingly brush metallic gold over highlights and swiftly over flat areas. Accentuate dings. Leave details of black and red. One coat is fine, it is easy to over-do it. Then it looks over done. So stop while you are ahead. I consider this a bronze finish with a red twist.

Detail

Clear-coat with Satin finish. I found these pretty capiz-shell shades at Shades of Light

Canopy installed.