Is Stainless Steel paint for you?

Ok, I am going to talk a little about my experience with the Thomas Liquid Stainless Steel I used on my stove.

I have had a couple of questions about how it has held up. The answer is, not as well as I had hoped, but I will also say that the only area we have had problems is on the actual stove top and only under certain circumstances.

Too cryptic? Ok, well, it was actually holding up beautifully for the last couple of months. Not so much as a chip. Until one day my sweet husband being helpful cleaned the top with a Magic Eraser. Something that pre-paint job I too would use to clean the stove top. Now, in fairness I don't think the kit came with particular instructions on how to clean it, but I just assumed something as strong as the Magic Eraser would be too risky on it. So anyway, After that we had two tiny chips on the stove top. Annoying, but they were easily touched up because I had PLENTY of the stainless paint left over. But not long after that... maybe a couple of weeks we had an incident where the teapot boiled over and we didn't catch it immediately. I don't know how long the puddle of hot water had been there when I went to clean it up, but when I did, a HUGE peeling of paint came up with it.

I'm not going to lie to you all... I cried. Yes, it is a stupid painted stove. But I stayed up for HOURS painstakingly adding thin layers to that stupid stove. I can only take so much. So after I cried and yelled and lost track of all real perspective in my life. I did what any mature mother and wife would do...... I stormed out of the house dramatically announcing that I had to go to Wal-Mart for more foam brushes to fix this "disaster"!! It was definitely one of my more proud moments!

The good news? I was able to do a decent touch up job on it.  I sanded everything down and redid ALL of my layers. You really can't tell unless you know what you are looking for.

This is the stove top after the touchups. 

One of the small chip areas next to the burner.

If you look closely you can see a small line down the middle which is where the paint stopped peeling off. 

The bad news? My husband and I are both really nervous about using and cleaning the stove top now. As soon as a new stove is in the budget.... which is probably not soon at all... but still as soon as it is I will purchase a real stainless steel stove.

I will say, that at this point I don't regret painting it. Mostly because I really did not like the two tone look of it before. I say at this point, because we haven't had more mishaps and I don't know if I could take touching that thing up every couple of months. I am hoping it was a fluke because of the boiling water... but I will keep you all posted.

Now... all that being said I have not had any issues at all with the stove front or even the drawer below where we keep our pans so it gets handled a lot. So it may be fine if you had a stove that you didn't mind the stove top itself and just wanted to do the door area. Although if you are looking for an easier fix, I have a good friend who recently used the stainless steel contact paper to redo her dishwasher. I have used this stuff as well (on a dishwasher) and was very pleased with the results. However, I knew that I wouldn't be able to use it on my stove top, which is why I chose the paint.

Anyway, I hope this helps any of you with questions about the paint. I guess the bottom line is if you have a decent, updated looking stove already and you are JUST looking for stainless steel I wouldn't try this. If you have the money, or are close to saving the money for a new stove and you are trying to decide between painting what you have and getting a new stove... get the new stove.

These are all of course my own opinions and experiences. I am just trying to be honest and informative. If any of you have or plan to use this paint I would LOVE to hear about your experiences. Let me know if you have any secrets or tips about this stuff that maybe I missed!