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Cool SOHO back painted glass idea

Cool SOHO back painted glass idea

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Cool SOHO back painted glass idea

Cool SOHO back painted glass idea

Sometimes an idea is just too good to pass up. I think this is one of them. Whether you work in an office, or at home, here’s something you may find useful – a back painted glass whiteboard.

If you make regular use of a whiteboard – in your home office or in a conference room – you know what happens. The dry erase marker doesn’t get erased immediately, and it leaves marker residue behind. Over time, the residue builds up. Sometimes special whiteboard solvents will remove the marker. Eventually, the board gets dented or scratched, or someone uses a permanent marker on it. Goodbye, whiteboard! (And whiteboards are not cheap.)

Back painted glass makes a great whiteboard

Here’s an easy, economical substitute for a whiteboard. The best part is that it will last longer, clean up better and cost less than the white boards you find in the store.

Take a sheet of ordinary float glass and cut it to your preferred size. Float glass does come in standard sizes, so if a standard size will work, you can skip the cutting altogether. The glass shop can also buff the edges of the glass to remove any sharp sides or corners. If you’re worried about breakage, you can also use tempered glass.

Paint one side of the glass with Glassprimer™ glass paint. Use any color you like, but a shade of white may work best for this application. Add as many coats as needed to achieve your desired opacity.

Once the paint is dry, you can apply the glass to a wall using any common neutral-cure silicone adhesive. The adhesive will not show through the paint, and is strong enough to hold the glass in place.

Ta-da! You have a permanent whiteboard that will not dent, or accumulate dry erase marker ink. You no longer need to use any special solvents to remove the dry erase ink. That’s because glass is impervious. The ink cannot not stain the board because the glass won’t absorb it.

If you’d like more information about back painted glass, or would like to order glass paint, please visit our online store at http://www.glasspaint.com.

Photo Credit: Rae Allen, via Flickr

Celebrate Earth Day with Painted Glass

Celebrate Earth Day with Painted Glass

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A growing number of consumers have made it clear that they want to take a more active

Celebrate Earth Day with Painted Glass

Celebrate Earth Day with Painted Glass

role in supporting and preserving the environment. They’re looking for designs and products that are more environmentally responsible and don’t have long-term impacts on human health. In part, that explains why glass is making a comeback. It also explains the growing interest in painted glass.

Painted glass is environmentally friendly

Painted glass has a lot going for it. From a consumer perspective, glass is often a local or regional product. Because of its nature, transporting glass over long distances isn’t attractive, so most float glass is regionally produced to limit transportation issues.

Consumers can cut ordinary glass to fit an application precisely. While glass is generally heavy, thin glass laminates won’t add a significant amount of weight to walls or surfaces. It’s easy to mount, using readily available adhesives.

Painted glass is easy to make. While you can purchase painted glass, it’s actually less expensive to make your own! Using ordinary painting tools that are available at any local home improvement store, you can make professional quality painted glass. The trick is to use paint like Glassprimer™ glass paint, which is designed to adhere to glass.

Glassprimer™ glass paint comes in two formulations – one that’s oil-based and one that’s water-based. Both formulations are low-VOC compounds. That’s important for interior paint projects, because it means that the paints won’t leave any unpleasant, unhealthy paint odors in your home or office. In either case, you can clean up the paint using regular paint thinner.

Painted glass is safe. Since glass is inert, and the unpainted surface of the finished glass is exposed, you work with a surface that’s easy to clean and sanitize. It won’t deteriorate, and it doesn’t release toxic by-products into your environment.

Products like Glassprimer™ glass paint mean that you can celebrate Earth Day every day in your home or office. If you’d like more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, please check out the rest of our site, at http://www.glassprimer.com.

Photo Credit: NASA

Permanent window paint and other crazy ideas

Permanent window paint and other crazy ideas

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Permanent window paint and other crazy ideas

Permanent window paint and other crazy ideas

If something about the word “permanent” makes you nervous, then the thought of permanent window paint might make you downright queasy. Fear not, permanent window paint is an actual decorating solution that can have a lot of upside in the right situations.

Where you might want to use permanent window paint

Not too long ago, I was in a hotel room in the financial district of Toronto. The original building opened in 1914 as a bank. In 2006, a group of investors added a condominium tower, which wedges between the old building and its former neighbor. My room was in the original building. One of the windows had a great, close-up view of the new building, and nothing else.

The hotel used permanent window paint to disguise the unpleasant view from the window. The painted window still admitted light, but I didn’t have to look at the condo tower. More importantly, the people in the condo tower didn’t have to look at me!

Permanent window paint is a great solution for applications where you’d install frosted glass. The good part about permanent window paint is that it’s actually less expensive than true frosted glass. It’s also easy to apply. Because the permanent window paint is – well – permanent, there’s no need for ongoing paint maintenance. That’s an added bonus when the window is on the 8th floor!

Permanent window paint is an ideal solution for your bathroom, especially if the builder neglected to install a frosted glass window. It’s also a good solution for “pebbled” glass, which some builders substitute for frosted glass.

Pebbled glass is textured on one side. It’s virtually impossible to see out of a pebbled glass window. That might leave you with the (false) impression that it’s likewise impossible to see into a pebbled glass window. Unfortunately, the smooth side of a pebbled glass window can be pretty revealing. To ensure privacy with pebbled glass, paint the smooth side with permanent window paint. Problem solved!

If you’d like more information about permanent window paint, please visit the rest of our site. To place an order for Glassprimer™ glass paint, please visit our online store at http://www.glasspaint.com

Photo Credit: Duncan Rawlinson, via Flickr

Painting glass in your home!

Painting glass in your home!

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Painting glass in your home!

Painting glass in your home!

If you’ve never quite gotten the hang of painting, you might be uncomfortable with the idea of painting glass. A painting project basically has two parts: planning and execution. Believe it or not, the hardest part of painting is the planning! If you take some time to plan out your painting projects, you’ll be rewarded with really great results.

Painting glass is only part of the bigger strategy

One problem that people encounter with a painting project is that the end result doesn’t “fit” with the rest of the house. In some cases, a painting project doesn’t fit with the rest of the room. This is where some planning can really pay off. The designs you see in photo shoots have one really big advantage over your project. You never see the featured room in context with the rest of the house.

Unfortunately, when you take on a painting project of your own, people view the finished product in the context of your whole house. An updated room might look great by itself, but doesn’t work in the context of the rest of the space.

Enter the whole house palette. A whole house palette is a color strategy that determines a complementary color scheme for the entire house. As you move from room to room, you use one palette that complements the work you’ve already done. When you’re finished painting and decorating the entire house, the colors you’ve chosen travel easily from room to room. Each room looks great by itself and in the context of the rooms around it.

Painting glass can work into your whole house palette, even if the rest of the house uses paint from another manufacturer. That’s because we can tint Glassprimer™ glass paint to match the paint palette of any major paint manufacturer. Your painted glass will integrate seamlessly with your walls, ceilings, trim and floors, even if another company makes that paint.

If you’d like to know more about painting glass, or you’d like to place an order for glass paint, please visit our online store at http://www.glasspaint.com.

Photo Credit: Lorien Rezende, via Flickr

Putting back painted glass in your home or office

Back painted glass in your home or office

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Putting back painted glass in your home or office

Putting back painted glass in your home or office

Back painted glass is an easy solution for homes and offices. It’s easy to make, and can really improve the look and function of a space. Back painted glass offers real benefits when you use it in the kitchen or bathroom. It can also improve the function of an open office space that makes use of glass dividers.

Bathrooms are ideal for back painted glass backsplash

Without a doubt, the bathroomis the “wettest” room in the house. Unfortunately, bathrooms aren’t always constructed using materials that can stand up to constant exposure to water. One way to preserve the walls that get the most exposure to water is to laminate them with glass. Glass will definitely stand up to water. It’s easy to clean, and it’s more sanitary than porous, painted surfaces like drywall and plaster.

You can create an elegant backsplash by using a thin sheet of back painted glass. The painted side of the glass rests next to the wall, and the unpainted side of the glass becomes the “working” surface. The glass can get wet repeatedly. It stands up to soaps, cleaners and other substances that come in contact with the bathroom walls. Better still, back painted glass will stand up to the humidity. It will look beautiful year after year.

Back painted glass will offer the same advantages and the same performance in the kitchen – arguably the second wettest room in the house. Surfaces in the kitchen need to be cleaned and sanitized regularly. Like the bathroom, the walls in the kitchen are likely to get wet. Unlike the walls in the bathroom, the walls in the kitchen are likely to get splattered with food. Having an easy-to-clean surface that isn’t fazed by cleaners and sanitizers is essential!

In an office setting, back painted glass can help control light and provide privacy. It can also disguise an unpleasant view without completely eliminating transmissible light.

For more information about back painted glass, or to order glass paint, please visit our online store at http://www.glassprimer.com .

Photo Credit: Scott Lewis, via Flickr

Glass painting solves decorating problems

Glass painting solves decorating problems

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Glass painting solves decorating problems

Glass painting solves decorating problems

Every home is unique, and has its own challenges. Despite this, you can find simple ways to solve decorating problems. Glass painting can help open a home, correct decorating mistakes and even correct flaws that affect your ability to enjoy your space.

Inevitably, homes reflect the design preferences that were in place when the home was built. These can include materials, design features, layouts, room sizes and more. Unless you’re willing to undertake a major remodeling, you’ll need to learn to work with some design features in your space. But that doesn’t mean you need to accept everything!

Glass painting can provide practical decorating solutions

For example, older homes commonly have paint that includes toxic metals like lead and mercury. In addition, they may contain leaded glass windows, which shed lead particles. Lead poses a health hazard to every person. The body absorbs lead readily, so limiting exposure is critical, regardless of how old you are!

Removing this kind of paint is difficult. One of the reasons these metals were added to paint was to improve the paint’s durability. Lead and mercury paints don’t tend to peel until they’re at the point of absolute failure. In addition, old paint formulations were often oil-based.

If you know that you have lead paint in your home, sometimes the best solution is to cover it. Keeping paint maintained can be a challenge, since newer water- and latex-based paints don’t tend to bond well to older oil-based paints. They also don’t provide acceptable encapsulation of lead paint .

One way to avoid constant paint maintenance is to cover the paint permanently with a thin glass laminate. The glass laminate prevents paint dust from becoming airborne. Glass painting enables you to add color to the walls while minimizing paint maintenance and immobilizing lead dust.

Lead management is only one example of the value of glass painting in your home. If you’d like more information about glass painting, or you’d like to place an order for glass paint, please visit our online store at http://www.glassprimer.com

Photo Credit: David Barnas, via Flickr.com

Glass Paint Goes To Sea!

Glass Paint Goes To Sea!

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Glass Paint Goes To Sea!

Glass Paint Goes To Sea!

Designing interiors for a yacht is a challenge. The materials you choose need to be rugged, elegant and simple. They must also be able to hold their own in an environment unlike any other. Glass works well as a material choice, and that means glass paint is the ideal complement.

Why glass paint is a good marine option

Glass paint is an ideal coating for multiple surfaces used in marine construction. Glassprimer™ glass paint works well on glass, Plexiglas™ fiberglass and other impervious surfaces. One reason that glass paint is up to the task is that the paint makes a permanent bond with impervious surfaces.

Ordinary paint doesn’t adhere to non-porous surfaces. While it will dry on the surface, it won’t cure. Ordinary paint will fail in high humidity or direct sunlight exposure. In addition, it isn’t rugged enough to withstand normal contact.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is engineered to modify the nanosurface of impervious materials. In doing so, it allows the paint to make a permanent bond. In addition to resisting chipping and peeling, Glassprimer™ glass paint is UV resistant, which means it won’t fade, even in direct sunlight.

Glassprimer™ glass paint is also highly affordable. A single gallon of paint will provide up to 250 square feet of coverage. Interior applications are guaranteed to retain their beautiful good looks for 10 years. Glass paint can also be used successfully for exterior applications. Our low-VOC paints come in both oil-based and water-based formulations, and won’t leave behind an overwhelming “paint” odor.

Glassprimer™ glass paint can also be matched to the paint palette of any major paint manufacturer. You can use glass paint for specialty applications, and you can be sure that it will match other paints you’ve chosen to use on other parts of the vessel.

If you’d like more information about Glassprimer™ glass paint, or would like to place an order for paint, please visit the rest of our site, at http://www.glassprimer.com.

Photo Credit: James Bremner, via Flickr.com

Glass paint is at home in any home

Glass paint is at home in any home

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glass-paint-painted-glassArchitects have to consider a wide range of factors when designing a home. One of the most significant concerns in architecture today is energy efficiency. Choosing designs and materials that make the most efficient use of space, energy and light is important. Glass paint may be emerging as one of the go-to decorative materials of the 21st century. Here’s why.

Glass paint works well with any construction

Glass is undoubtedly attractive as an architectural material. Aside from being able to transmit natural light, glass is a pretty good sound absorber. It’s easy to clean, plentiful and strong. It can be used both architecturally and decoratively in both commercial and residential applications. It can also be combined with other materials, like cement, to create durable, unusual and attractive surfaces.

That’s the good part about glass. The bad part about glass is that by itself, it isn’t very energy-efficient. Large expansive windows give a space a lot of natural light, but they also allow the structure to exchange heated air. In the winter, windows are a primary source of heat escape. In the summer, they’re a primary source of heat. Both of these conditions tend to make heating and cooling bills go through the roof.

Being able to control light is key to being able to control heat. Heat is part of the invisible light spectrum, so coatings that can reject or reduce heat gain become an important component in design. GlassPrimer™ glass paint is such a coating. When applied to windows, it can reduce solar heat gain by helping to reject the light frequencies that contribute heat. Careful application can help reduce solar heat gain without eliminating visible light penetration.

GlassPrimer™ glass paint can be used in both interior and exterior applications to control light and heat, and create privacy. It’s a cost effective alternative to frosted glass, and can provide coverage for about $1 per square foot of glass. Unlike traditional frosted glass, however, GlassPrimer™ glass paint can be tinted to match the paint palette of virtually any paint manufacturer. This means you can create a colored frosted effect, which simply isn’t possible with true frosted glass or colored frosted glass.

If you’d like more information about GlassPrimer™ glass paint, or how you can use it to complement your home’s design, please visit the rest of our site.

Photo Credit: Sam Calma, via Flickr

Glass paint décor in your home

Glass paint décor in your home

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Glass paint décor in your home

Glass paint décor in your home

A growing trend in residential decorating is stained glass. Although stained glass has been made for nearly 2,000 years, it didn’t become popular in residential settings until about the mid-1800’s. Since stained glass is typically hand-made, it tends to be expensive. It fell out of favor during the Great Depression, and is only now making a comeback. Glass paint, however may have an edge on stained glass artwork.

Glass paint is safe for home decorating

Stained glass is re-emerging at a time when environmentalists and regulators are raising serious questions about the safety of stained glass. During manufacturing, toxic metals are added to molten glass to produce the vibrant colors that make stained glass so desirable. During the firing process, these toxins can be released into the air. The danger doesn’t stop there.

Older stained glass pieces often contain lead edging called came. Louis Tiffany Comfort, who was famous for his stained glass artwork, used often use copper came. That gave his pieces a distinctive look. Unfortunately, stained glass work made with lead came sheds lead dust. Lead is a powerful neurotoxin, so traditional stained glass art made with lead came (and the areas around it) must be cleaned regularly to avoid accidental lead exposure.

What most people don’t know is that “stained glass” made from about the 1300’s to the 1800’s was actually painted glass. It wasn’t until the 1800’s that artisans in Europe revived the older stained glass manufacturing techniques that rely on metal inclusions. Many of the most recognizable stained glass works in Europe are actually painted glass.

Painted glass provides a wide range of artistic options because it can include virtually any color. The glass painting process also doesn’t rely on lead came to bind the piece together. By eliminating heavy metals in glass production and lead in the finished product, painted glass artwork is actually safer to install and maintain in residential applications.

While the painted glass windows in Europe relied on a firing process to cure the paint, modern glass paints like GlassPrimer™ glass paint are designed to bond directly to the glass surface. The paint actually modifies the surface of the glass to promote permanent adhesion. Once GlassPrimer™ glass paint is cured, it will not chip or peel. Since it does not slough off toxic dust, it is safe for use in residences.

If you’d like more information about GlassPrimer™ glass paint, or you’d like to explore how it can be used in your home, please visit the rest of our site.

Photo Credit: yooperann, via Flickr

Using glass paint in your back and side entryways

Using glass paint in your mudroom

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Using glass paint in your mudroom

Using glass paint in your mudroom

Your entryway often makes your home’s first impression on your guests, so homeowners often spend time making their guest entryway as welcoming as possible. But homes often have more than one entrance, and the other entries to your home deserve some love, too! Glass paint can help you dress up the entryways to your home that perhaps only you and your family use.

Glass paint can help clean up!

Many families never use their front door. Instead, they enter the home through the garage door or a side door. The dog might only use the back door. These areas tend to collect a lot of dirt; they’re the working entries to your home.

When your wet, muddy dog comes in, the first thing he or she does is – you guessed it – shake mud and dirt all over the place! Walls, floors and doors get covered with mud and dirty water. That’s where the term “mudroom” comes from. No one really wants to dedicate any space in their home to dirt, but this working entryway to your home can use a little quick updating.

Constantly washing the walls of the mudroom isn’t good for the paint, and it creates a lot of extra work for you. A simple solution is to backpaint Plexiglas™ or thin glass with GlassPrimer™ glass paint and laminate it to the walls. Suddenly, your paints stay bright and the surfaces can be cleaned quickly with a damp cloth or sponge. No more scrubbing and no stains! The color stays bright and cheerful, and clean-up is a snap.

It makes sense to laminate the areas of your home that are most likely to attract dirt, dust and water. Those never make a great combination for paint, but you can combat the wear and tear on the walls, and eliminate a lot of cleaning for yourself! Glass paint provides exceptional coverage for about $1 per square foot. Because the laminate is attached with silicone adhesive, you can put it up and take it down without worrying about damaging the wall surface. Painted glass laminates are also a great way to hide existing surface damage.

If you’d like more information about using GlassPrimer™ glass paint to dress up your entryways, please visit the rest of our site.

Photo Credit: John Brownlow, via Flickr