31 Days of Paint #8 Making New Paint Look Chippy

Thank you for coming back to my 31 Days of Paint Series. If you would like to see it from the entire series just click HERE.

Today we did some experimenting with paint to try to get the shelves Joe cut for our corner/door shelf to match the “Unpainted” or partially stripped door we worked on yesterday. See that post HERE. 



Joe cut the shelves from an old worn piece of plywood to match the warn quality of the door. I sanded it lightly with a palm sander and 80 grit sand paper.



We decided we wanted layers of paint that we could peal or sand back to reveal. After spraying it one coat of green apple. I took an old candle and rubbed the wax of it in areas that I didn’t want the next layer of paint to stick to.



After waxing, I applied a coat of my favorite color: Kyrlon’s Bahama Blue.



You can see in the photo above that the green shows through where the wax was. After letting the blue paint dry, I waxed it again just a little.



Then I applied a layer of sunshine yellow (Krylon I think ~ didn’t take the “can” shot).



The paint does not dry where it was waxed, so I wore gloves and rubbed it with steal wool in the direction of the grain to reveal all the colors. 



When we were happy with the layers we had revealed, Joe added a thin coat of white paint.



He did not wait for it to dry. He took a rag and whipped off some of the white.



This is a before and after. It toned down the bright spray paint. But this picture does not do it justice, you really can see all of the colors coming through.



Joe thinks maybe we are trying too hard and should just paint the shelves white. What do you think? {I love it when he gets all crafty with me. I am such a lucky girl!}



I think we came pretty close. Short of applying stripper and doing it the hard way, I think this technique worked. I also think I am going to hit it all with the sander 1 more time and that will make all the difference. Tomorrow we finish this baby and move on to the next adventure. Your thoughts?