It’s hard to believe you can change silver metal to gold or brass…but I found you can! So everyone makes mistakes when redecorating, right? Too bad you can’t easily try out hard-wired light fixtures!  When I chose chrome pendant lights for our kitchen I made the mistake of listening to Amazon reviews. “We love these lights; everyone compliments us on them!”

We redecorated our kitchen based on an inspiration photo I found and loved. We chose navy lower cabinets and contrasting white upper cabinets so it wouldn’t be too dark overall. We added an island made from a Lane nightstand I found at Goodwill, and brass handles throughout. A shiny white hand-cut tile backsplash completed the look. 

Now it was time to choose the lighting.  After scouring articles on what finish to use I found decorators touting that mixed finishes were the latest trend. Great, that solves my quandary; should I use brass to match the cabinet pulls or nickel to match the stainless appliances.  The kitchen was looking a bit nautical with the navy, white and brass so I chose fixtures that looked like ship lights. I started with a beautiful brushed nickel pendant over the sink. The others were only available in chrome which I thought was a bit shiny, but hey mix and match right? Plus everyone on Amazon was raving about them! After many hours of a difficult installation I stood back and ewww, they looked so new and shiny compared to everything else. 

So I actually lived with this disappointment for a year or so until one boring day I thought, let me explore my options, could they be painted? In place? (It would be much too difficult to remove them) Would it look cheap?

Rub ‘N Buff

That’s when I came across this product called Rub ‘n Buff; everyone raved about what they’d done with it (yes I know, I believed reviews again) but I thought what the heck. I ordered antique bronze and tried it on a spot, then just went for it!  The wax goes a long way just like the reviews said, is easy to apply and actually looks very realistic! The process is similar to applying shoe wax; rubbing in a dollop at a time, waiting for it all to dry, and buffing to a sheen. It is actually made of ground metals so I felt like I wasn’t cheating with a paint coating. I was actually changing real silver metal to real brass (or gold)!

I was waiting for my husband to freak out that I had altered them, but true to form he didn’t even notice for a few months.  Then one night he looked over from the couch into the kitchen and said you know what? “In this light those lights almost look bronze!” Well I had a good laugh and fessed up. He agreed they look great in brass! Let me know what you think of the transformation.

Original Fixture in Chrome

After applying Rub ‘n Buff