I recently completed several projects for a client in Topsfield who wanted to lighten up his home and go with a more contemporary style. The main walls, previously warm and darker are now pale gray. While he couldn’t update everything like the large square foot wall-to-wall carpeting in the office, there were small changes he could make. He contacted me to help update this dark accent table.
As you can see in the before photo of the accent table, it had a dark stain on the wood. The interior decorator he consulted for help in prior renovations suggested doing a “flaky, silvery finish” on the table to change its appearance. My solution was to apply aluminum Schabin leaf all over the entire piece. It’s a metallic leaf that is broken up into smaller pieces and applied over a sticky sizing medium then burnished with a soft pad. Metallic leaf comes in gold and copper as well as the aluminum and is an easy way to update a piece of furniture. The table had a lot of detail that really popped when the aluminum leaf was applied. The result is a stunning, silvery and fun piece that is completely different from the original table. I love it, and so does he!
Before
