Ever have appliances that don’t quite match? Or moved into a new home, rental property or just starting to do a few renovations and noticed that all the appliances are mismatched. The stainless steel paint might be the answer for you.
This is common in a lot of places and replacing a “white” fridge with a stainless steel fridge can be pricey. Especially if nothing is wrong with the fridge and the only problem is “curb appeal.”
Now you can simply paint your fridge to match your other stainless steel appliances. By doing this, it will make your kitchen look unified and newer.
Stainless steel paint
Other solutions besides the paint are Krylon and Rust-Oleum stainless steel. Thurmalox products won’t work on fridges since these are intended for cast-iron stoves and kitchen appliances.
The purpose of the spray-on products is intended to work on small stuff like decorative items and cabinet hardware.
However, the stainless steel paint can be applied on pretty much any surface. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an appliance that you would apply it out. But the best solution we found was updated the old white fridge that’s taken up the kitchen appeal.
Since buying new small appliances is relatively cheap, the paint will work better on bigger items. The company Thomas’ Liquid Stainless Steel paint offers the “world’s first brush-on stainless steel.”
The paint goes on like how you would normally brush on paint on a wall.
It is made up of 100% stainless steel (automotive grade) clear resin to provide a finish that looks like real stainless steel.
How to apply the stainless steel paint
The paint comes in the form of a base coat and a high gloss top coat. Other accessories that you would need are a grit eraser pad and multiple different sizes of the foam brush.
- Clean the fridge with window cleaner or 50/50 Ammonia/water mixture. This will make it clean surface to apply the base coat on. If the fridge is dirty, the paint will not look as clean and could be spotty
- Tape off the handles and sometimes the handles can be popped right off. If this is the case, pop off the handle and unscrew the hardware
- Prime non-metal surfaces with a magnet
- Apply a water base primer by using the same brush strokes (don’t mix up the patterns)
- Shake and stir the base coat and do not paint insulation face
- Use a 3/8″ roller first then use a foam brush (make sure you use one stride from top to bottom). The final pass should be long, end to end, one way brush strokes
- Wait 60 minutes
- The next thing you want to apply another coat of base paint
- Clean up the tools and start applying the top coat
- This time, do not shake the top coat and only stir it
- Apply the top coat just like how you have with the base coat with the following coat amounts depending on your outcome
- satin finish (1 coat)
- semi-gloss finish (2 coats)
- high gloss finish (3 coats)
- Let it dry for 2 hours
- Cut out the tape, do not just peel it as it will take the paint off
- Enjoy
Additional information
Keep in mind that the Thomas’ Stainless Steel Paint will offer a brushed-stain finish that can look different from other manufacture appliances since each of them use a different stainless steel process.
Another thing with stainless steel appliances is a bronze tint that will come over you stovetops cause of heat. This is normal wear and tear and will happen with the paint as well.
This application can be done on stoves as well, but the only difference would be that you would be painting horizontal instead of vertical on stoves.
It is recommended to do multiple coats to have an enhanced appearance that would be a seamless finish.
Other applications
This paint works on pretty much any surface imaginable. If you own a rental property, this can be a fixer upper solution for cabinets and back splash.
If you can paint your counters, it would be ideal to paint the cabinets in this stainless steel paint to make it stand out. The paint can be applied as a backsplash to add a textured background.