Powder Coating Lighting Fixtures Can Transform Your Home
Light fixtures are among the most subtle decoration in our homes. Even when they are big and bold, the eye often slides over our light fixtures, and they become part of the background and ambiance of a home. The time you take and the choices you make when it comes to decorating necessary sources of light speaks volumes about your personal aesthetics. Now, powder coating lighting fixtures provides you with the option of customization. Designers and homeowners can have the finish and color they desire by powder coating lighting fixtures.
Personalizing Your Light Fixtures
Many people stick with whatever light fixtures come with the house, usually plain frosted glass over ceiling fan bulbs, canister lights, and perhaps a modest chandelier for the dining room, but some homeowners like to put some real thought into their decor and spend a little bit of time every year finding ways to improve and personalize the home. If this sounds like you, then you have probably some thought into reinventing your home’s light fixtures. Perhaps you are browsing catalogs of light fixtures in your other tabs right now, or perhaps you have been looking for ideas on ways to make something new of the fixtures you have. In either case, your personality and creative vision might best be served by powder coating lighting fixtures.
What is Powder Coating?
When you are looking to refurbish a light fixture, you have a number of options. You can paint it or spray paint it, use a tinted finish or a sturdy lacquer, or you could powder coat it. Unlike the other variations, powder coating does not have a toxic liquid solvent that evaporates to leave the pigment. Instead, pigment powder is sprayed dry onto carefully hung and prepared metal items. The powder sticks in an even coat because it has been electro-charged causing static cling and any excess powder can be recollected from a clean spraying environment to use again.
The item is then cured, which is a process in which it is heated just enough for the powder pigments to liquify, melt together, and then hardened into a seamless impenetrable shell. Powder coating is flexible enough in this state to bend with metalwork meaning that you can still craft and modify powder coated items but it is sturdy enough to resist chipping and scratching from almost any impact or scraping force. It protects against corrosion and is completely non-toxic, so powder-coated items are safe for children and pets. It also happens to look fantastic.
Every Color and Finish
Many people think that powder coating is only one type of finish and a few think that it only comes in black, but these are both misunderstandings. Powder coating can be mixed and applied to achieve any finish you are looking for from wrought iron to translucent gloss. You can have it almost any kind of metal finish shining gold to darkened bronze for classic metallic styles but what people powder coating most for is candy painting anything they can bring into the shop.
We have seen candy-painted patio furniture, cribs and strollers, rims and hubcaps, water bottles, pipes, and of course, light fixtures.
Your Light Fixture Freedom
When choosing light fixtures out of a catalog, you may notice a few distinct limitations to your choices. The first is that each catalog has its own style and assumption of what your style is as well, which means truly creative homeowners looking for something new may have to try a few different sources before you find a light fixture that really speaks to you. The second limitation is that most light fixtures come in four or fewer standard metal shades. You can have white, black, shiny gold, shiny silver, brass, or bronze. Every now and then, you may see something that is faintly blue, faintly gray, or intensely red but custom colors are not always available without powder coating lighting fixtures.
Pick Any Fixture You Like
But what if your style doesn’t fit inside this tiny box? What if you crave color, variety, and possibly light fixtures that are more than one color per fixture? With powder coating, you can have it all. With the ability to change the color of the fixtures at will, you now have the freedom to choose any light fixture you can find regardless of whether you like the available colors. In fact, you can save money by selecting the cheapest color variation because it won’t be showing for long.
Recolor Your Current Fixtures
Alternately, you can always completely reinvent your current light fixtures by changing the color and the entire visual effect they provide. Even plain ceiling fan fixtures can be powder coated into something one-of-a-kind from standard pieces.
A Classic Bronze Patio
A very popular use for powder coating is to restore patio decor that has been left out in the weather a little too long. While much attention may be paid to the rusting patio furniture, your outdoor light fixtures are what truly sets the stage for your leisurely time outside. For example, you can create a classic outdoor paradise with dark bronze powder coating gleaming in the light of your freshly refinished wall lamps. If you have fence or yard lanterns, these too can be bronze powder coated to make your entire backyard feel subtly like a royal garden.
Other things you can powder coat to build your elegant style to delightful completeness include the patio furniture, the hose faucet fixture, any handles or gate latches, and even parts of your backyard grill.
Splashes of Color
If you are looking to make your mark on the house with bold statements that somehow don’t overpower the room, powder coating the light fixtures is the perfect approach. While light fixtures are good at hanging above your head, out of the way, bright colors are sure to catch the eye of guests and visitors in a way that those normal dull fixture colors never would. Without being obvious, you throw delightful little splashes of your favorite colors all over the house through the power of powder coating.
Starting with the light fixtures, you do not even have to get new ones to make your difference if you like the structure and style. Simply bring in the fixture without any bulbs or non-metal parts, choose your color and finish, and watch the magic happen. You can have bright blue, red, green, or even purple light fixtures, colors you could never get from the store that will make your decorating style truly unique.
However, why stop at the fixtures? You can easily choose a few other decoratively placed metal objects in the room to add splashes of accent color, much like throw pillows on your walls and floors. Metal light switch and outlet covers, for instance, can be powder coated, as can metal vent covers, door knobs, curtain rods and closet bars, and even drain covers.
Nurseries and Children’s Rooms
Powder coating is very often used by DIY parents looking for ways to safely decorate their children’s nurseries and rooms in bright, friendly colors. Children love candy paint even more than creative adults and are notorious for picking a single overwhelmingly favorite color. They will wear that color, sleep in that color, draw with that color, and decorate their entire room with that color and powder coating can help you make that dream a reality. Or you can help your child diversify by turning their room into a crayon box of choices and rainbow decor.
Starting with the light fixtures, your child’s ceiling fan can either be their one favorite color or each spoke can be a different color of the rainbow. You can even pick a unique color palette and design the room in complementary shades. Lamps can be powder coated to a slightly different shade in the same bright colors, and even a metal flashlight can be powder coated to their favorite color for blanket fort reading time.
Other things you can powder coat for children and playrooms include metal cribs and baby gates, refurbished old metal toys, tricycles, little tables and tiny child-sized chairs.
Family Customized Powder Coating
Another way to approach the powder coated light fixture project is to let each member of the family choose the color they want their own light fixture to be. This is your opportunity to personalize the house and interior decor in a way no catalog could ever provide. Support your teen’s current strong color preference by letting them choose what color their ceiling fans or pendant lights are and empower your younger children by letting them decorate with a bright and colorful favorite. You can either decide as a family on shared room lights or draw straws on who gets to choose for each room.
Your home is your castle, and unlike times in the past, now every aspect of your castle can be customized to your favorite colors. With powder coating, your light fixtures no longer have to be limited to white, black, gold silver, and bronze. Now they can be red, blue, yellow, green, purple, and every color in between. For more information about powder coating lighting fixtures for your household, contact TLC Metal today.