25/07/2020
Happy Saturday, y'all! Today was supposed to be delivery day for this TV cabinet repurpose project. It's been kicking my tail for weeks. We went with a custom mix of milk paint colors. I really wanted the milk paint look, with its subtle color variations, and natural age effect. I'm in love with the design!!
If you've worked with traditional milk paint, you know how amazing it looks! While the picture of this piece looks amazing, I realized, at this point, that I wasn't happy with the finish on the outside. What you don't see in the photo is that I had a ton of crazing/cracking in several places. I can't tell you how much remediation I did to correct the cracking. 🥺🤦♀️🤷♀️
Cracking and chipping is part of the charm of milk paint. You never really know how or when it will happen, but you can mitigate the risk. With this piece being pressed wood, I did my usual prep work, taking care not to compromise the the original finish; you don't want to expose the particle board. Anyway, it all went well. I primed and achieved excellent adhesion! I thought we were on our way. And then I started with the milk paint. It seemed like business as usual after the first coat. It was with the second coat when all started to go downhill.
If you paint furniture, you know that there's always issues. It's just part of the process. Many times, once you step back, you don't see those little imperfections that are so obvious when you're looking at it inches from your face. I was hoping that would be the case, here. Sadly, after a couple of days "living with it", I decided that I wasn't comfortable sending it home. I called my client to break the news. She was incredibly gracious and understanding!
We'll be refinishing the outside with the professional grade products that are more suitable for this application. I've learned a lot. The big lesson is that my "magic" finishing skills can't overcome every single problem!! 😅😬
If you've read this far, bless you! We tend to only share the good, but there's sometimes issues behind the prettiest of pictures.