Sweet Parrish Place

I'm the girl with champagne taste and a tight budget

Trashtastic Tuesday- How to Distress Galvanized Metal

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How to distress galvanized metal
Hey all!  Welcome to Trashtastic Tuesday! This is a little series around here where I show you something that I thrifted, sometimes I make it over, sometimes I don’t.  Or it may be something that I have owned and I am tired of, or no longer like, so I make it over.  But nevertheless, it is usually something that I paid very little money for.  Today I am going to tell you how to distress galvanized metal.  It is really easy!
How to distress galvanized metal
I purchased this tall vase, or bucket (whatever you want to call it) last Spring to use for Miss 19 Year Old’s graduation party.  And speaking of Miss 19 Year Old, she is finishing up her Freshman year of college this week, and will be home for the summer, woot woot!  I can’t believe how fast this first school year without her went.  Having her leave home was really hard, and I have missed having her around ever since.  But she loved WVU, and she loves the fashion program she is in, so she had a pretty good year.
Anyway, back to the bucket.  When I bought it, it was all shiny and new, but I wanted it to look old and distressed.  So I set out to figure a way to give it an aged patina.  And as always, Pinterest does not let me down.  I searched there and found a few different methods for aging metal.  Some people use vinegar, some use paint, and some use toilet bowl cleaner.  After reading as many different procedures as I could find, I decided to try distressing my metal using toilet bowl cleaner.  I am pretty sure any brand will do, and to be honest I did this over the winter, and I can’t even remember which brand I used.
How to Distress Galvanized Metal
Supplies:  Toilet bowl cleaner steel wool, gloves to protect your hands, and water.  That’s it!
It is probably better to do this outside and use a hose, but it was the middle of winter when I did this, so I did it in the kitchen sink.  Probably not the best idea, but it worked.  All you do is apply the toilet bowl cleaner (while wearing gloves) all over the surface of the metal you are distressing ( I chose to just do the outside of mine), and give it a good scrubbing with a piece of steel wool.  Then do not rinse it off, just leave it sitting there for about 1/2 hour.  If it isn’t to your liking after a half hour, leave it until it is.  This is the part where I probably should not have left it sitting in my sink with toilet bowl cleaner all over it.  It made some stains in the bottom of my stainless steel kitchen sink, and I had a very hard time getting them off.  As a matter of fact you can still see them if you really look.  So do not leave this sitting in a stainless steel sink!  After you have let it sit until you feel like it looks distressed the way you want it, rinse it off really well.
How to distress galvanized metal
How to distress galvanized metal

And you are done!  The shiny finish is completely gone.  If you want it to look even more distressed and aged, you can leave it out in the rain a few times after that, now that the shiny finish is off, it should rust if left outdoors.  Right now, as you can see, I have my vase sitting on my Spring mantle.  I have taken the Easter parts of the décor off, but these pictures were taken before that.  Right now we are in the process of painting our living room.  We are working on it one wall at a time as we have time on the weekends, so everything in that room is kind of a disaster now.  But we have two walls down and two to go!

How to distress galvanized metal
In the picture below, you can see one small part of this vase, right at the top, where the metal did not distress.  That is where the vase was touching the bottom of the stainless steel sink.  I could go back and fix that, but I decided I liked the way it looked,  not too perfect and flawed.  So I left it alone.
How to distress galvanized metal
You can also see, at the far right in the picture below, that I have another bucket that I need to distress.  At the time that I did this one, I had not bought the bucket yet.  I purchased the new one at Target for $3.  It has cute little rope handles on it, and I am going to use the same process on it some time this summer when I can do it outside.
How to distress galvanized metal
The picture below shows you the bucket before I distressed it.  This was my dining room buffet at Christmas time.  You can read the post where I shared this here.
How to distress galvanized metal

Thanks for joining me at Trashtastic Tuesday today!  Do you have any shiny galvanized metal that you want to distress?  Have you used some other method that worked for you?  I would love for you to share it in the comments!  If you like today’s post, please feel free to check out all of other Trashtastic Tuesday Projects.

Have a Great Tuesday!

This is where I party:

Tuesday:
Inspire me Tuesday// Project Inspired// Show and Share// Totally Terrific Tuesday
Lou Lou Girls Fabulous Party// Two Uses Tuesday
Wednesday:
Wow us Wednesdays
Thursday:
Think and Make thursday// My Two Favorite Things
Friday:
Creativity Unleashed// Home Matters// Weekend Retreat// Funky Junk
Saturday:
Found and Foraged//
Sunday:
DIY Sunday Showcase// That DIY Party
Monday:
Amaze me Monday// Something to Talk About// Bloggers Brags// Motivational Monday
Remodelaholics// Metamorphosis Monday 

Comments

    • Nicki says

      Thanks so much Mimi! I STILL have a little spot in my sink from it! I am getting new sink and counters soon, so all is well that ends well!

      Reply

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