Painting a Metal Headboard with Old World Paint

My home is an explosion of colour.  There's colour everywhere. And frankly, I love it. 

Except my bedroom. It's my nemesis room. I never get it quite right.

So when I told this to a fabulously-gorgeous-wonderfully-kind-and-immensely-talented friend as I admired her stunning and peaceful bedroom in her perfectly-styled vintage home, she told me something in many ways I already knew, but needed to hear. (You know that way that only friends have?)

She said keep it calm, keep it neutral, add your pops of colour. I'm simplifying here, but it resonated. Because my home is a riot of delicious colour, I kept trying to carry that into the bedroom...and it never took. 

This brings me to our beautiful metal headboard that I still love after all these years. It's been stashed in a shed for awhile but the chat with my friend had me dragging it out over the weekend.

Here's what happened next....

BEFORE: Metal headboard with pewter finish

The high-gloss hammered pewter finish on wrought iron

Close-up of finish

With absolutely no prep and no sanding, I painted straight over the gloss metal with the first coat of Old World Clay & Chalk Paint in the colour, Almond Orchard, a soft warm white with rosy undertones.

The first-coat-ugly-stage can send people in an outright panic.  It looks like it's never going to work...

Work-in-Progress: First-coat ugly!

Ugly brush strokes, not great coverage...that's OK!!!

It's the second coat of paint that does the really hard work. Check out the coverage difference! 

Spraying the bed with Chalk Paint is another option, but I'm a sucker for a hand-painted finish. I found that switching to a round paint brush left fewer drag marks in the paint and I used an artist brush to get into all the tricky curves and turns. 

Artist Brushes help get into curves, turns and tricky angles

Round brushes helped cut the drag marks on the tubular surface

Loving that coverage with just two coats of the colour Almond Orchard

I wanted to see the headboard in natural light and although I THOUGHT I wanted a solid finish...at this very moment I knew it needed a bit of distressing.

Because the base is metal (and it was only left overnight to dry) I assumed I'd need to be very gentle when sanding back but I had to put some muscle into it. I went from a 220-grade sandpaper, to 150 which I then used to wet-sand.

Once I was happy with the finish, I waxed it and some brushstrokes become a bit more prominent with waxing. If you prefer not to have brushstrokes and want a more solid finish, I recommend primering with a grey tone and a light sand between coats before waxing. 

Here's the end result...I kinda love it.

I might just be on the path to making friends with my bedroom style...we'll see if it sticks?!!!

It's all here...for the love...
Sada