Ever get a decorating idea in your head that keeps popping back up until you do something about it? About six months ago I became intrigued with the look of aged galvanized steel and the look of aged zinc. The idea of aged zinc had to be scrapped for two reasons; it was darker than fit my decorating scheme and it was more expensive to make than the budget allowed. So aged galvanized it was.
Perhaps you’re wondering what exactly aged galvanized is. Picture an old farm bucket that is dull and whitish gray. Or a large, old watering can. These started out a shiny mottled metal, but over time became dull and chalky. So, what did I want to do with aged galvanized, you may be wondering. Nope, I’m not into making farm buckets or watering cans. My first idea was to make a kitchen backsplash from sheets of aged galvanized. But I opted for a faux stone tile backsplash instead, because it was a good counterpoint for the concrete countertops. The faux stone had both the countertop color and the cabinet color, bridging the two.
Browsing kitchen islands online, one particular photo caught my eye. It was an island lit with multi-colored lights on a shiny metal background. It wasn’t at all my style which is neutral and yes, dull. But it got me to thinking of the possibilities with aged galvanized under our eating bar. Husband was very patient about this weird idea and even agreed to help.
Research online showed that taking the shine off galvanized steel is a simple process. Finding the particular type of galvanized steel I had in mind wasn’t as simple. I found out from going to different metal fabrication businesses that what I wanted was called Spangled Galvanized. It had a pattern. I was able to order it from one of the metal fabrication businesses and have it cut the size needed to cover the wall under the eating counter. We are blessed to have an old pick-up for errands like picking up large sheets of metal. Our oldest son generously gave it to us and we have used it constantly in the course of our construction project. It’s the ugliest vehicle in any parking lot, but it purrs like a kitten and does everything we ask it to. I’d like to get tinted windows so I can’t be seen in it, but maybe it would be better to paint it. But I digress.
The online directions said to put the metal in the sun and spread Zep Acidic Toilet Bowl Cleaner on it. However, we live in the Pacific Northwest where we have had approximately 9 days of sun since early October. It’s April now. Let’s see, that’s nearly 7 straight months of rain interspersed by several snows. Obviously, the sun thing wasn’t going to happen, but we did wait for an hour of cloudy-but-not-actually raining. We rushed out and put up sawhorses; placed the two 7 foot sheets on the sawhorses and began spreading the toilet bowl cleaner all over the surface of the shiny metal. We squirted it from the bottle and spread the gel with foam brushes. In the absence of solar heat, we hit the sheets with a heat gun. The blue gel turned grey in about 15 minutes. We waited 
an hour to make sure the chemical had worked its magic, then we hosed it off just as the rain started. Yes! The shiny was gone and there was dull in its place with some streaking and some mottling. Husband was worried that I would be unhappy with the streaks. “Perfect,” I said. “Random is what we want.” I had braced myself for less than stellar results and was greatly relieved that it was only a little strange.
We have an Ace Hardware in our town and they had, wonder of wonders, dull galvanized bolts and washers. 
Perfect match. Husband adeptly installed the sheets of aged galvanized under the counter by drilling holes and attaching the sheets with the matching bolts giving an industrial or farmhouse look. We are working on installing warm white LED strip lights to softly illuminate the metal at night. The self-adhesive light strips are much cheaper online than from box stores- approximately half the cost.
The only unexpected outcome of our project was that the galvanized steel has a blue, cool cast which does odd things to our warm gray cabinets and trim. It makes the warm gray look beige in contrast to the blue undertones on the steel. Who knew?
Pretty cool!