I have replaced this standard 6′ closet with a custom storage unit with a space for each member of the family:
The painted surfaces have a coat of primer and three top coats of Valspar Ultra Premium Kitchen and Bath Enamel.
I would like to further protect the surface of the shelf area above the drawers. This area will surely see school backpacks and such dragged across the surface.
The ideas I have so far is to add a couple clear coats of acrylic or even polyurethane.
Thanks for any tips!
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Replies
Any bigbox store has a selection of roll stock stuff, plastic, fabric, and paper, which is used to line drawer bottoms.
Check out what is available and save yourself the trouble of more coatings. You already did four. Isn't that enough?
Take some more pics of the finished work. It'll never look so good again, once the family starts storing and retrieving gear.
Live with it, and get on with the next great project. Good job!
Nice job. You're right, the shelf edges above the drawers will take the worst beating.
Might be a little cheesy, but you might want to try some of that clear plastic corner bead that they sell for wallpapered corners. It would be unobtrusive, but it's durable.
Greg
The biggest thing I am trying to prevent is the marks that come from metal objects - the slightest scrape with a metal buckle, tool, zipper, etc seems to always leave a "metal streak". It isn't a scratch but it is an ugly mark.
I suppose that comes along with white paint but I'm convinced if come up with a top coat that isn't the white paint, then the annoying marks go away.
Jim
White formica ? Tile Board ?
Greg
Just about anything you try to top coat with will yellow over time, and nothing you can paint on will be bullet proof. I installed a bay window last year over a clients kitchen sink. After having the same discussion, and recognizing that the the shelf would get "high traffic" we decided to install white laminate on the shelf surface. Everything else is painted white. They have no regrets.
I think i'm liking the tips on using white laminate.
So now I am wondering... would the laminate glue stick OK to my already painted shelves if I rough them up some?
You know, I'd probably cut to fit and just lay them in the openings. You might consider that clear wallpaper corner to hold the laminate in place.
Greg
To quote an old master of the language who posted many a discourse here on BT in ol' days gone bye...
"I have developed a consistent, nagging, but low-level loathing of white decor, or off-white as the case may be.
"White is a loaded, on a lot of levels, color. Cleanliness, order, light, truth and beauty all have contexts within the mythology and associations with this color. Or as my physicist friends would point out colors, as in all.
"Not surprising that HOs who have children, and the disordered and messy life they imply, would see photographs of an all-white house as an ideal to be striven after.
"Of course white-on-white decor, outside of meticulous couples without children with large domestic staffs and regular scheduled redecorating, starts deteriorating from it pristine perfection the moment, sometimes before, it comes out of the box. White-on-white ideal beauty is an ideal that humanity seems likely to strive toward but not reach. Not as long as humans actually live in around it. It might work fine as long as you could build the house and keep it essentially free of human contact once near perfection is reached.
"But, alas, the money to build a home does not always confer wisdom enough to avoid this trap. Too often I wire homes with an active white-on-white theme. Often they want minor changes a few months after completion. The signs of deviations from the ideal are obvious even in that short time. But true folly falls to those who move in with children. White sure does show the dirt and wear. White, or off-white, cabinets and carpets start working toward abstract works in the Jackson Pollock school.
"Every rub, scrape and bump clearly visible. Every drip, smear and greasy thumbprint telegraphing itself from across the room. A pristine perfection defiled in an almost Zen manner. Of course I can say that given fifty years of semi-random encounters a certain organic patina can start to develop. Humanity and nature reasserting itself in the face of human imposed monochrome. In the mean time, prior to the half a century of refinishing, the results are seldom pretty.
"IMHO it would be far wiser, and considerably less stressful and time consuming, to start off with a decor that is people friendly and more cooperative with natural organic processes of humanity."
I made a set of collapsable (for moving, not generally!) book shelves for my stepdaughter and took into consideration that they'd get worn and bumped from moving, kids, etc., so I painted them with three layers of milk paint--each layer is a different color, so when they are scratched or worn, different colors show through and they look "antique." I top coated the layers of paint with boiled linseed oil--that sort of shines up and darkens the milk paint which is sort of mottled and chalky otherwise.
Cut pieces of 1/4" Corian and put down with dabs of hot glue
Jeff
I build painted kitchen cabs, and pan storage and damage is an issue. I just take a piece of 4/4 hard Maple, round off the ends with a 1/4" router bit, joint one side, chuck a 3/16" bit in the lam trimmer, and pass along all edges, and then set the saw for 1/4", and rip it off. Do the same thing for enough battens for your shelves. You can brad them in using a spacer of your choice to keep'em straight.
The maple battens don't need to be finished, as they will take the abuse and not your shelf surface. This method works for extremely heavy cast iron pans like Le Cruset.
Tom,
How closely do you space these strips?
For pans, I usually do about 4-5". I'll post a pic tomorrow.
Here's the pic with tape. Did about 3-4" on these.
Nice - if you didn't want the 'wood' look you could use strips of white Corian or even UHMW plastic (Delrin).
Jeff
Edited 6/13/2007 8:14 am ET by Jeff_Clarke
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. As I do mostly Maple and Oak slab doors and painted carcases, I can use drops from the wood I have left over.
That granite tile square leaning in the cupboard there, does it get used as a cutting board/heat protector for the countertop?I built the chimney after my hoeing in the fall, before a fire became necessary for warmth, doing my cooking in the meanwhile out of doors on the ground, early in the morning: which mode I still think is in some respects more convenient and agreeable than the usual one. -Thoreau's Walden
It's a piece of Corian left over from the countertop fab. Austin Countertops makes these for you from the drops and sink cut-outs. No charge. Good business practice. Don't care for it as a cutting board, but I've used it for a heat protector.
Thanks Tom. Those "wear" strips are an idea I'll have to keep in the back of my mind. It's a good idea.
There is a very simple solution to your problem.
After the paint has dried for at least a week, brush on a coat (or two) of water based polyurethane to the wear surfaces.
The WB won't change color over time, and it will protect the painted surfaces from scuff marks.
Choose a sheen to match the paint you applied, (satin, semigloss, gloss),which will make it invisble. Scuff sand the surfaces very lightly with 220 grit before you apply the poly.
I have used this technique for years, and it is very effective.
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"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
I'm glad to see this has worked for you so well. I was sure it would look fine on a limited sample test piece I was just too worried to find out it wasn't such a good idea sometime down the road.
Tom,
I like those maple battens. That gives me an idea for another project I completed. I posted this pic on this forum somewhere else but here goes again. The cabinets have glass shelves except for the bottom shelf of both the top and bottom cabinet. They tend to get large platters, trivets, etc placed on them and the battens may do the trick for me.
View Image
View Image
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Beautiful work!