High-end designers and architects are constantly in search of innovative products to help them better serve their discerning clientele. As a resource for the design community, Badilla Painters considers it part of its mission to provide more tools for design professionals’ proverbial toolboxes.
“Designers are always looking for that ‘wow’ factor – something unique that they can offer their customers,” says Joe Badilla, president and founder of the Bridgehampton-based company, which for more than 30 years has provided high-quality custom finishing and exterior and interior painting throughout the Hamptons, New York City and Connecticut.
Badilla Painters recently developed ChromableNY, a new, eco-friendly technology that involves applying a reflective chrome finish to any surface to provide new life to existing furniture, architectural elements, fixtures or even painted artwork.
ChromableNYKevin Quinn
“Anything that can be painted can be Chromed,” Badilla says of the newly launched technology, which took 18 months to perfect. “Our formulated base coats will bond to any substrate – wood, leather, ceramic, plastic,
metal, glass, bone and others.”
Existing paints on the market range in sheen from flat or matte to the wet look, Badilla says. ChromableNY’s level of sheen is north of the wet look.
“We brought the sheen level to 100 percent, which is above and beyond the highest level of sheen available on the market,” Badilla says. “You can see your reflection in our pieces.”
ChromableNY is available in a wide range of colors, including classic metal and jewel-toned hues. The metallic color choices include bronze, copper, gold, silver, brass, champagne and space gray, while ruby red, emerald green, sapphire blue, aquamarine and citrine are among the jewel tones.
“We can also create custom colors,” Badilla says. “Designers may want a specific color to match a color elsewhere in the home.”
The company has begun showing the product to designers, architects and furniture artists.
“We are thrilled by their reaction and level of excitement,” Badilla says.
While ChromableNY was still in development, the company unveiled its process to Rio Hamilton, an interior designer and design industry marketing consultant with offices in Manhattan and New Mexico.
“They showed me different finishes that they were hoping to achieve, and I was very impressed,” Hamilton says. “I happened to have a client that liked shiny objects, and the client was looking for a finish for a dining room table.”
ChromableNY was applied to the iron tabletop.
“It was done in this deep emerald green tone that the client wanted, and it came out beautifully,” Hamilton says. “It almost looks like glass.”
The client loved it and decided to have the intricate, hand-carved front of a vintage wooden English chest done in the same finish.
“I’ve seen chrome finishes, but never in these gorgeous jewel tones,” Hamilton says. “It seems new and fresh to me, and I think a lot of people will find it’s a very useful application to things that exist already or
things that you might want to change when you first get them.”
and classic metal huesKevin Quinn
What appeals to many high-end clients is the one-of-a-kind quality that ChromableNY brings to a piece.
“The finish is so custom that you’re not going to see it anywhere else,” Hamilton says. “You might be able to recognize the dining room table and who manufactures it, but the fact that it’s in this gorgeous green
color changes the whole game.”
From bronze kitchen cabinets and gold toilet bowls to sapphire blue armoires and space gray fireplaces, how ChromableNY is applied is limited only by the designer’s imagination, Badilla says.
However, it must be applied at Badilla Painters’ studio.
“While perfecting the process, we learned that we have to precisely control factors like humidity and temperature and the volume and consistency with which ChromableNY is applied,” Badilla says. “We also use a lot of water,” which is then separated in the process from the metals. The process is greener than chrome plating, he says. Further, ChromableNY is scratch- and UVresistant and features auto-body clear finish for durability.
This article appeared in the Memorial Day 2022 issue of Behind The Hedges. Read the full digital version of the magazine here.
