Becky, another paint tutorial? Why another one, haven’t you perfected (ha-ha!) your paint technique by now? I like to play and paint (and wood) is the medium I most like to play with. I told you I went shopping the other day for new paint colors, muted, Oregon Coast inspired colors. I decided to try them out on this bench: Now, before you wood adorers freak out on me for painting this gorgeous hunk of barnwood, let me say, I KNOW! Even I have a tough time painting beautiful wood with so much character. But, I am in business and I need to sell what I create and what sells is paint. I have made many benches that I have left au natural. After several weeks of not selling, I slap some paint on them, up the price and BOOM–they sell. I started by giving the bench a light sanding and then adding some candle wax in just a few spots on the wood. I really grind some big wax chunks on there. I then painted a lovely, light green color. I am using interior latex in a satin finish. More wax and then a soft, very light, aqua blue (it was getting dark outside at this point, sorry for the less than stellar pictures). I leave some heavy, messy blobs of paint. This completely stressed my rather neat and methodical husband out. I let this dry well, overnight. Next came a little more wax and a final, top coat of a misty grey. When this was almost dry, but not completely I scraped it with a paint scraper. This takes the paint off where the wax is, but also off from the textured spots of the wood. The longer you let the paint dry, the less paint you will scrape off, so decide how much of the top color you want to leave. This is a random, organic process, i.e. the results will be different every time. After scraping I do a little sanding with a 120 grit sandpaper and then used Minwax Early American stain over all of it. Look at that chippy loveliness that does NOT look like it was made in a factory in China. My pet peeve, okay one of them, is fakey looking distressed furniture. Now, if I only had a beach cottage to go with my bench.
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