The moment I saw these sconces I knew I had to have them! The bouquets of roses and the carvings are what dreams are made of! I knew automatically they would take a bit of elbow grease but that never scares us away from purchasing something we love. If an item has great lines and beautiful carvings, we will make it work.
These sconces originally housed standard sized sockets. I decided I didn't want to mess with re-wiring so I removed the old (and I mean really old) wiring and sockets which created a perfectly sized crevice for 1.5" wide flameless candles. This is so easy to do, I cut the wires on the back so they were shorter, unscrewed the sockets, and pulled the wiring out through the top of the sconces.
I used two colors of paint, both by our favorite paint brand Amy Howard Home. In our technique, our first color is always the lightest of the two we choose. For this project, I chose the color STONEWARE. This color is exactly as it sounds, mimicking the shade of vintage stoneware or "ironstone."
The second step in making anything repainted appear vintage is using Amy Howard's CRACKED PATINA. This stuff is like liquid gold in our opinion. It creates a canvas for the second color to "age" the final application.
I followed the Cracked Patina with the color ITALIAN SILVER. This is a beautiful, nearly-white-but-not, gray. Picture that authentic vintage piece with a perfectly aged white patina. This is your ticket. It's not pure white and it's not pure gray. It's a glorious combination of both.
The end result made my heart sink. When this happens, I know I achieved the look I was after!
Don't forget we have the perfect eBook that details our painting techniques and paint color choices! This digital download will show you a step-by-step process for creating an aged finish like shown above!
