Teach Me Tuesday: How To Silver Leaf a Table

Today’s Teach Me Tuesday features the fabulous Laurie from House to Your Home. Laurie is a real-life designer, not a fake one like me who just pretends on the Internet. She created a gorgeous silver leaf table for a client, and I’m excited to share her how-to.

Laurie explains:

Awhile back I showed you an e-design for a client and since that time the project has moving right along but as anyone who knows a thing or two about designing a room you’re going to hit a few bumps in the road.

My client decided she wanted to make a few changes to her e-design which I was happy to do after all it’s her room. First, she decided she was only going to live in her house for another year so she wanted to make the room look great but wanted to scale way back on the initial budget. Second, she decided she wanted to switch the turquoise accents to red accents.

Two easy fixes but today I’m going to talk to you about how we scaled back on the budget for the room. The easiest way to scale back was to eliminate the mirrored chest. I mean the one below from Pottery Barn is a $399.00 and trust me that’s one of the cheaper ones out there!

My solution? Silver leaf a table! It’s easy and alot less expensive. First we need a table.

(Easy enough, this table was the homeowners so it cost her nothing!) I then used one of my favorite products kilz primer. I mixed the kilz primer with some black paint I was going to use to paint the table.

Mixing a little of the paint color with the primer with the color you plan is a trick I picked up so when you go to actually paint the piece the actual paint color doesn’t need as many coats. Once the primer dried I painted the table an Onyx Black in eggshell by Glidden.

The table was looking really good and I almost wanted to stop right there and leave it black. But hello, we needed some sparkle going on in that room!

The next few steps I unfortunately do not have photos for, for some reason my camera didn’t want to cooperate. I’ll talk you through the process though.

After the black paint was dry I used silver leafing adhesive called Mona Lisa adhesive which cost $3.19. After painting the table with the adhesive I let it sit for 60 minutes and until it was sticky to the touch. Once that was done it was time to apply the silver leafing. I used a product called silver leaf argent feuille and covered the entire surface. I used almost 3 packages which cost about $27.00. (Notice we’re not even close to $399!)

All you do is take sheets of silver leaf and start applying it to the table, one slightly overlapping the next, pressing it down until it is flat and then you peel off the backing. Don’t worry if there is a bit of a gap though, the paint that shows through actually looks pretty cool. This whole process takes quite a long time but after the first few sheets I totally had the hang of it and I like doing stuff like this. To finish the table and prevent the silver leafing from flaking I sealed the table with 2 coats of Mona Lisa metal leaf sealer that cost of whopping $2.99.

When it’s done it looks like this.

It really looks great next to the bed and soon I’ll post the final reveal of the finished room, until then a few photos to tie you over.

(Next to the new bed and bedding)

(The client’s antique chair, she wanted to keep the antique look of it)

(My client lives locally and I was able to do work with her both by online correspondence and home visits.)

This is so great, Laurie!  Thank you for sharing!  Since my DIY mirrored dresser is still in pieces in my bedroom (I promise it’s coming, y’all!), this is a great alternative.