I am really excited to share my first experience with Plutonium paint with you today. My new craft room needed a rad new work table, and Plutonium provided the great paint to make it happen. I was thrilled to be able to work with Plutonium, not only because the paint is great, but because they are a Detroit-based company.
Detroit gets a ton of bad press, some of it deserved, but nowhere near enough GOOD press for all the exciting things going on in Motown today. Young businesses and savvy entrepreneurs are attempting to change the landscape of the city, literally and figuratively. Plutonium™ is one of those companies, and for that I give them my FULL support!
Some of my favorite features of Plutonium’s™ paint:
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Dries in 3 to 5 minutes
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Hard, matte finish – Most spray paint finishes semi-gloss or shinier. I really like the matte look of Plutonium’s™ paint.
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Sprays upside down – This is huge when you are working on large pieces of furniture!
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Eco friendly, recyclable – The paint has a higher pigment to propellant ratio, which reduces the nasty chemical output.
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Pleasant scent – Instead of the typical spray paint smell, Plutonium™ has light, almost candy-like scent.
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The only spray paint that is ENTIRELY made in the United States.
And look at that array of awesome colors. I chose Plutonium’s Vegas for my desk project, but I have also been eyeing Limon Cello, Aloha and Zen. Possibly all for my craft room. Don’t judge me.
When we moved into The Mad House, the previous owners left a few old pieces of furniture in the basement. None of it was anything special, but, hey, free furniture! One of the items they left was an old metal office desk. It was sort of a non-descript yellowish-grey color with a laminate tabletop. It wasn’t pretty, but it had potential to be an excellent work table for my craft room.
Since I had some success using dollar store contact paper for as a paint mask in my TARDIS project, I thought I would step that concept up a notch for my desk. I cut out 6” x 6” squares of contact paper and drew my Mad in Crafts icons on them.
Using my Exacto knife, I cut out the designs. I tried to remember to keep the designs touching the border so that the negative space wouldn’t make the stencils too flimsy. It’s the same principle you would use when carving a pumpkin.
(Note to self: Mad in Crafts pumpkin this year?)
All cut out and ready to go.
I carefully peeled off the backing paper and placed the contact paper stencils on the desk. I smoothed them down several times to remove any big bubbles or wrinkles.
![prep the desk[4]](https://lh3.ggpht.com/-ZENrJFrrEvY/UFsMLdBKM2I/AAAAAAAANpk/7fjM525Zf5o/s1600-h/prep-the-desk42.jpg "prep the desk[4]")
My husband and I carried the desk outside and I taped off all the areas I didn’t want painted. I used old Christmas wrapping paper for the top of the desk because I am cheap. I eventually even ran out of painter’s tape and finished up using packing tape. It is not a good substitute if you are taping on a painted surface, but since the desk is just metal, it worked perfectly.
I even taped off the drawer hardware to keep the chrome pulls from being painted.
Check out that color! That’s not just pink, that’s PANGK! And please excuse our horrible lawn, the drought here this summer wrecked our grass. The Plutonium™ Paint had a bit of a learning curve. The higher pigment to propellant ratio comes out at a much different rate than standard spray paint. I had to get quite a bit closer to the desk to get full and even coverage. But, because of this same ratio, if you were to spray from a bit further back the intensity of the color diminished. This would make fading one color into another color (like for an ombre effect) much easier to do than with standard spray paint.
The paint sprayed on in a bright, matte finish which I love. There was also very little overspray. No paint on the lawn, no paint on my hands and arms!
Because of the great coverage of the paint, you can’t really see that this is the side of the desk with the contact paper stencils, but they are under there.
I used just over two cans of paint to cover the entire desk, including the front and sides of each drawer and areas under the desk.
Because of the way Plutonium™ designs their paint, you can actually hold the can upside-down and the paint will still work properly. (Also, notice the how perfectly the actual paint color matches the color on the can. It is always upsetting with the paint isn’t a true match to the can.)
After the second coat was dry, I scored around the stencils with my Exacto and began to peel off the contact paper.
After some careful peeling, the contact paper was gone and the Mad in Crafts icons appeared!
My branded desk looks amazing in my work space! The table is smack in the center of the room, so that Vegas pink and my Mad in Crafts icons hit you when you first step through the door. As an added bonus, this side of the table also provides a possible backdrop for project photos.
The desk has the perfect size work surface for the space of the room, leaving me plenty of room to work on all sides of the tabletop.
I am glad I chose to paint the sides of the drawers with the Plutonium™ pink. I like that the concentrated color is carried on all around the desk. The last touch I added to the work table was to paint the pull-out shelf with chalkboard paint. I can use the chalkboard to write down which crafts supplies I need to buy or I can use it as another photo op spot.
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