Get a Bandaid on that Bleed Through!
It doesn’t happen often but every once in a while we will get the dreaded “Bleed Through” on a piece when we are painting with Chalk Paint™ by Annie Sloan. The most common problem is usually pine knots but sometimes you will get pink from old mahogany stain, yellow or brown splotches from walnut or little brown spots from oak. Now sometimes we can ignore those brown areas if we are going to paint something rustic and we will be using Annie’s Dark Wax but if you are looking for the clean classic lines of Pure White the last thing you are looking for is this!
A mix of Old White and Pure White Chalk Paint™ over mahogany stain.
This is the point where our trusty shellac comes to the rescue because applying another coat of paint at this point will simply amount to two coats of pink paint instead of one.
This is the brand that we use and is available in the store and in our online shop and has never let us down!
Most of the time one coat of shellac is enough, it only takes minutes to dry and you can apply your next coat of Annie Sloan paint. In this case that mahogany stain was stubborn!
After one coat of shellac
In our experience this type of unstable stain is the most stubborn and generally we will apply two coats of shellac at a time but in this case we thought it was a good time to experiment and we knew we would be applying multiple coats of paint.
After two coats of shellac
After two coats of shellac between coats of paint we are seeing good results. And our final coat of paint is free of pink stain.
This was a particularly pesky bleed through and most of the time one coat of shellac will be sufficient, just be confident that all is not lost.
A few things to be a aware of…shellac has a shelf life and should not be stored in an overly cold or hot place. There is a date code on the lid of this brand and I like to stay within a one year time frame although it is guaranteed to stay stable for three years. The code starts with an S with the number following being the last digit of the year of manufacture. In 2017 I would look for and 6 or 7 but a 5 should still be good. Unless you use a lot of shellac buy small, a pint will go a long way.
As always if you have any questions about Annie Sloan Paint and products be sure to stop in the shop or give us a call.
Happy painting everyone
Melanie