Adding a final decorative touch to either a piece of store bought furniture or a do it yourself project is an easy way to give your own personal style to what you’re working with.  Whether it be a tortoise shell finish, which is an easy project that I previously wrote about, or simply applying a stain, you can quickly take what you’re working with and make it look much better, from ordinary to extraordinary.  In particular, you can apply gilding, which gives objects a thin layer of gold, just by using your Preval Sprayer System and a few other materials.

Gilding can be applied to anything from picture frames, to vases, and even to larger pieces of furniture.  There are a couple of ways that you can go about gilding, but no matter which way you decide to do it always start by sanding the surface that you’re working with.  Make sure that the surface is smooth so that the gilding will stick.

Next, choose a background paint to spray onto the surface.  You want to have a background color to fill any rough spaces.  You can fill your Preval reservoir with the paint color of your choice, but make sure to thin it out before spraying (usually a 2 to 1 paint water ratio works great).  Then, use Preval to give the surface you’re working with a nice coat of base paint.

Next, you will want to apply an adhesive so the gilding powder will stick to the surface you’re working with.  You can use any ordinary adhesive, which you can spray using your Preval system.  However, if you’re using Goldleaf, then you will need to use a special adhesive called gilder’s size.  Gold leaf must be applied before the size is fully dry but when it is still tacky.

Lastly, it’s time to apply the gilding powder.  This can be a very dusty process, so you may want to lay a tarp down to make clean up a little easier.  Using your Preval sprayer, apply 1 or 2 coats of the base paint to the surface, then dip a clean, dry brush into the gold powder and gently brush it over the tacky size or varnish.  Apply the gold powder fairly thickly as it will soak into the size.  Brush away the excess powder.

Instead of settling for boring piece of furniture and accent pieces, you can let your own style shine through just by using your Preval System to apply gilding.  Do you know of some other ways that Preval can help give your furniture a little something extra?  All you have to do is send in your pictures or video that show what you made and how you made it with Preval, and you could win a trip for two to Las Vegas!  Look for details on Preval’s Home Page, under the NEWS section.

-Jen